The Successor
by Summoner Luna
Summary: It is what they dreamed of, and what they feared. It is what they never expected they would live to see happen. Now, there is only the question: was it worth the price they paid? -SquallxRinoa, the succession, and the myth of life according to plan.-
1. Chapter 1

In the south, by the sea, there was a house that looked into infinity. A house that saved the memories of children and witches alike, and a house that now lay crumbling into the seawall, nothing more than a monument. A house that was already fading from history books, as those who could remember it waned in number.

It was in the house he found her, just as he expected.

"It's cold," he said, and paused at the thin line between seawall and what had once been a magnificent stone staircase. Her eyes remained locked on the sea.

He sighed, and stepped towards the rocks. "I know. It's always cold." This was a routine so old they'd almost worn a new path against the incline, each of them having long ago memorized the places that were safe to step. He grimaced at the familiar pain in his shin, and swore under his breath.

It wasn't supposed to end like this.

"Here," he said, finally reaching her, and wrapped a jacket around her shoulders. To his surprise she shifted against it, and she looked at it, confused.

"Thank you." She stared down at the fabric for several long moments, and then looked up at him. He waited, watching her, and counted down from ten in his head and she smiled right as he reached 'one.'

"What are we doing here?" she asked, and looked around them. "I've told you it's not safe here anymore."

He sighed, and her cheeks flushed.

"Oh."

"You've only been gone about an hour. I came in from the shop for a drink and you weren't there, so I came here first."

"I guess that's... Good."

_Better than last time,_ he thought. _Better than the first time._

"I just-"

"It's okay." He placed an arm around her waist, and leaned down to kiss the top of her head. "You don't need to explain anything."

"Thank you," she repeated, and they stood and watched the wind.

"I was thinking about tacos tonight." The silence was becoming too much for him, and food usually seemed to cheer her up.

"We had those Monday." She made a face and smiled, but a dark look crossed her eyes, and he knew what was coming. "If you didn't have such a craz-"

"-Don't say it." His voice was harsh and she winced, but he did not back down. "You're not... Don't say it."

Her eyes narrowed, but she held her tongue. "Fine. But not tacos. Spaghetti? It's cold. We froze that sauce last time, it'll be fast and warm. We can have toast."

She smiled again, and this time it was real. He smiled back at her, and let his hand trail across her back as he moved it towards her own, and laced his fingers through hers. "Come on."

She nodded and followed dutifully, both of them retracing the steps they knew so well back towards the shoreline that sat beneath the town. The town they built, the town they had called home for over a decade. They remained silent for the short walk back to their house.

"Squall," she said, pausing at the end of the bridge that led over the dunes.

He stopped, and let her take her time. The sun was almost completely gone, and Rinoa stared at the lighthouse, now a dark shadow against the pink sky, and then turned to watch the last light leave the clouds in the east. She whispered something he couldn't hear, didn't need to hear.

_Goodnight_.

The stars were slowly emerging, and with her ritual complete, he lightly dropped his arm around her shoulders and steered her onto the bridge, towards the warm glow of the house that waited.

_._

_June, eighteen years past_

__.__

"Again, mommy!"

Rinoa stifled a laugh, and made her face as serious as possible. She took a deep breath, closed her hands in front of her, and said, "Little stars across the land, come down! and dance, within my hands!"

She spread her hands and arms open wide, releasing a cloud of stars that twinkled over the beach and left glittering dust across their path, and grinned at the excited squeals that followed. "Noelle, be careful!" she cried out to the girl who ran chasing the stars across the sand.

"That's a new spell." Squall took a seat beside her on the beach, and handed her a thermos. She breathed it in, the smell of orange peel and vanilla warming her in and of itself. He leaned over and kissed her temple, and she turned, catching his lips with her own.

"Eeeew!" Noelle cried, running towards them over the fading glow the stardust left in the sand.

"What do you mean, _ew_?" Rinoa asked, and let Noelle take the thermos, breathing it in just as she had.

"I mean _ew!_ You were kissing!"

"And who told you that was gross?"

"'Veen." Noelle said, and burst into giggles.

Rinoa gave Squall a very firm sidelong glance, and he just shrugged. "You're the one who thought it was a good idea to let them babysit."

"Well, it's a lot better than the other things he could have said," Rinoa whispered, and took her thermos back, pulling it closer and further from her daughter, making a game of letting her chase the smell.

"Can I have some?" Noelle asked.

"Once it cools off," Rinoa told her, and waved her hand over the top to share the scent.

"Mommy made stars!" Noelle turned now to Squall, who raised an eyebrow that sent both Noelle and Rinoa into a round of giggles.

"Can you go bring us your stars?" Squall asked, and Noelle jumped up, and immediately took off towards the house.

"What?" Rinoa asked, and took a careful sip of her tea, and tried to look as innocent as possible.

"Stars?"

"Oh come on, Squall, we're on vacation. And it's good for her to see it in a fun way. She's got most of her life to see magic as something dark, and violent-"

"-And healing. And protective-"

"-And dangerous, and necessary. If she grows up afraid of it..."

Squall shook his head, and Rinoa took another sip of her tea. "This is not a vacation conversation," she declared, and firmly took his hand. "Swear it. On the power of this wonderful tea you found."

Squall rolled his eyes, but lifted his hand anyway.

"Say it."

"Rinoa-"

She raised a threatening eyebrow.

"Fine. I swear, on this wonderful tea-"

"-On the _power_ of this wonderful tea-"

"-On the _power_ of this wonderful tea, that I will not talk about..."

"_Unfun things_."

"_Unfun things_, while on vacation."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"Good. Now drink." She pushed the thermos towards him and he took a small sip, just as Noelle came skittering towards them, clutching three sticks topped with glowing stars. "Here, here!" she shouted, and handed off two of them to each of her parents.

"And what do the stars command we do?" Squall took the wand and stood, bowing slightly to Noelle, but stared over her head at Rinoa with a look that told her she wasn't getting off the hook that easily.

"Dance!" Noelle cried, and grabbed her father by the hand to drag him closer to the shore. "Come on, mommy! Dance!"

Rinoa took a second to wedge the thermos into the sand, and stood, her skirt blowing in the breeze as she skipped ahead to join her family. "There's no music," she said, and tapped Noelle on the head with her wand.

"It's the dance," Noelle paused dramatically, "of... The stars!" She giggled again and started jumping and waving her arms, showing her parents the dance they were to do.

"Well! The Dance of the Stars!" Rinoa looked at Squall and winked. "We know that one!" And she joined in, and finally he did as well, and the movements of their wands in the darkness blended in imitation of the stars Rinoa had earlier created.

Noelle was their conductor, letting them know when to speed up, and slow down, and finally, when song was over. They all three bowed to each other, and Noelle looked at Rinoa expectantly. "Is it cool now?"

Rinoa nodded, and Noelle ran towards the thermos, taking several eager drinks of the tea.

"Good find," she said, and nudged Squall with her elbow.

He shrugged, and let his hand drop down to find hers. "I know my girls," he said, and she smiled.

"Except," Rinoa nodded at the little girl holding the thermos and shaking in time with music only she could hear, "You still haven't quite figured out the concept of bedtime."

"Well, somebody told me we were on vacation." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Doesn't that mean the rules don't apply?"

Rinoa scowled and dropped his hand, and ran forward and scooped Noelle into her arms.

"Hey! I almost spilled!"

"Mommy will take her tea now, and someone needs to go to bed."

Noelle immediately dropped her lip into a pout, but handed over the thermos, which Rinoa immediately passed to Squall.

They walked the short distance back to the rental house, and to compromise, Rinoa let Noelle make a show out of shaking the sand from her clothes before ushering her inside.

"I want to hear it," Noelle said, once she was bathed, and in her PJs, and snuggled in bed.

"Star-"

"No, from daddy."

"If you insist." Rinoa kissed her forehead then took a step back, and let Squall take his place beside the bed and start the rhyme.

"_Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight-_"

Rinoa stepped softly towards the door, and let their voices echo in unison, as she walked down the hall and into the living room. She picked up the thermos and took another deep breath, and stepped out the house and onto the balcony.

"It's cold," Squall said, and closed the door behind him as he joined her.

"Good thing someone made tea." She passed him the thermos, and he put his arm around her waist.

"Rinoa-"

"I told you. Not while we're here."

"We can't avoid the subject forever."

"Do you want me to say I'm sorry? That I regret showing our daughter every once in awhile that magic isn't something to be afraid of?" She sighed, and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"I just... Wish she never had to learn about it at all."

"I know. Me too."

The tide was coming in, and Rinoa closed her eyes and listened to the waves. She felt Squall lift his hand to take another sip of tea, and caught the scene of orange peel and vanilla as he lowered the thermos and she breathed it in, breathed in the sea air, and relaxed into him. He let his chin rest on top of her head, and they stood for a long while, and watched the moon rise over the ocean.

._.

Squall woke up alone. The room was the dim grey of early morning, and the bed was cold. He turned, steeling his hopes, and lay with one eye still crushed against the pillow and looked at the rest of the empty bed.

He shut his eyes, and listened.

There was a gap in his mind, and in the darker moments, alone, he yearned for the thing that once filled it. For a time when he could wake up alone and know, without truly knowing, where she was. Now he was left with whispers, a phantom's hold on something that had been a part of him, of them, for their entire lives together.

He slid his arm across her side of the bed, traced his fingers across the space she should have occupied, and tried not to worry.

He'd spent half a century trying to learn that trick, and he doubted he'd ever figure out how.

Squall drew his fingers into a fist and pushed himself up in the bed, swung his legs over the edge, and let his right leg take the weight first. He got dressed slowly, and felt himself relax when he opened the bedroom door to the smell of coffee.

He climbed the stairs and there she was, sitting on the other side of the sliding door, looking at the sea. He filled a mug, and walked out to join her.

"How long have you been up?"

She brought her mug to her lips before answering, which told him it had been awhile. "The moon had set," she finally answered.

They owned no clocks; those had been the first things to go. He found life without them far easier than he would have imagined in his youth, and when they were out (when he was out, at least), the sight of them gave him chills.

This time of year the sun was just over the east end of the ocean, and it cast long shadows over the dunes.

"I'm sorry I left last night," she said, and he turned to her, surprised. She looked up, greying hair waving in the morning breeze. "It's not my memory that's the problem."

He gave her a hard look, and finally took a seat beside her. They had a small table on the upper balcony, and started most of their days sitting at it, watching the sun rise as they drank their coffee. Before, and...

"Today's the end of term, right?"

Squall nodded. "Half-day for the students. I'm going to try and leave early as well. Do you want to go anywhere tonight?"

Rinoa paused, her coffee mug pressed lightly against her chin. "Maybe."

"Well, think about it while I'm gone. We could..."

They hadn't left town since it happened, and he wasn't sure he could, even if she wanted to.

"I'll let you know." He felt her hand on his and she gave a small squeeze, and smiled.

Squall smiled back, and pulled her hand up and kissed it. "I have to get ready now. Are you going to stay out here?"

She nodded, and he turned. By the time he came back upstairs, the sun was hitting the upstairs windows, and through them he could see her hair glowing bright orange.

He stepped outside again, bag slung over his shoulder, and leaned down to give her a kiss.

"I'll try and stay put today," she told him, and kissed him again when he frowned at her in response.

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

He took the side staircase down to the street, and kept his eyes on the sky for most of the short walk to the school. No red in the sky today, which he noted with relief.

Maybe she'd be okay today.

Maybe they both would.

* * *

_This is, by complete accident, written as part of the Where I Belong Inspired challenge. I originally was not going to do the extended part of the challenge, as WiB was rather time consuming, and trying to get a multi-chaptered fic finished by a deadline was exhausting, on top of a lot of other real-life stuff going on, plus I usually do NaNoWriMo, and none of the ideas I had for that met the WiB guidelines. Then, as I was writing out notes for the story I had finally decided on doing for Nano, the notes quickly turned into something that did actually meet those guidelines, and I figure, including this in the challenge will actually ensure I finish._


	2. Chapter 2

"You leaving soon?"

Squall looked up from his desk to see Bree, one of the art teachers, leaning in the doorway. She had a bag full to bursting, and when she tried to wave at him, several pens fell to the floor.

"Oops," she bent down to pick them up, which only sent a couple more pens, along with multiple sheets of paper, tumbling down with her. "I guess I need a bigger bag."

"You could try actually organizing the one you have," Squall said dryly, but got up from his desk to help her nonetheless.

Bree grinned. Squall liked her. She reminded him of Rinoa, from when they were younger. Energetic, passionate, and usually falling apart at the seams in a way that would annoy him on almost anybody else, but she pulled off as endearing.

"So, you gonna be here much longer?"

Squall took her bag and manipulated its contents until he had space for all of Bree's belongings, zipped it closed, and handed it back to her.

"Rinoa and I were thinking of going out tonight. I told her I wouldn't stay late."

"Is she well?"

He froze. Bree was distracting herself with the zipper on her bag, apparently enchanted by the fact it would actually close all the way, and didn't catch Squall's reaction.

"Your wife. Is she well? She never comes by anymore. The students miss her."

"She's fine," Squall replied, and turned back to his desk. "She's been busy, helping our daughter with a few things."

"Okay." Bree shrugged, clearly unconvinced, but she at least had enough respect not to push him. "Well, tell her I said 'hi.'"

"She'll be happy to hear from you," Squall said, and started packing up his own bag. Bree grinned, and gave him a final wave goodbye before disappearing down the hall. Placing the remainder of the essays in front of him into a folder, Squall finished packing and followed Bree's path, grateful she was no longer in sight.

He made it the rest of the way out of the building and over the grounds with no further interruption, and soaked in the feeling of Friday as he walked home.

There was a time in his life when the days of the week meant nothing to him. Mercenaries didn't exactly operate on standard office hours, and for a long time, it was what worked for them. Even before Noelle, when Rinoa was deep in the Timber government, she spent as much time at work or on projects on the weekends, as she did in the office during the week. Their vacations were when work sent them out of town, and for a very long time, that was enough. More than enough; they were grateful. The monotony of Monday-through-Friday would have been suffocating, back then.

And it was, for the first year. Everywhere they went was either closed or crowded on the weekends. Rinoa tried to remind him repeatedly they had a choice, but for Squall, it wasn't a choice.

But after this long, he finally understood, and he relished it.

He was two blocks away when he smelled the smoke, and his stomach dropped. It couldn't be coming from their house. It just...couldn't. If were a house fire, surely he'd have noticed sooner, right? Squall kept walking, faster, trying to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from, and each step led him closer and closer to the same, horrifying conclusion.

"_Rinoa_." He took off at a run, clutching his bag and ignoring the pain in his leg, and within a minute their house was in view, and he could see the cloud of smoke rising over the roof. He swore, dropped the bag, and ran through the carport towards the dunes to take in the house from the back, afraid of the sight that would greet him. He was expecting smoke from the bedrooms, or the kitchen, or through any of the back windows...

...He was not expecting to see Rinoa standing on the deck just above him, frowning at a stone fire pit, while the house sat unfazed behind her.

"Rin?" He squinted up at her, and when she looked over the rail of the deck, her face lit into a huge grin.

"Surprise!" she cried. "Where's your satchel? And what are you doing down there?"

"What are you doing with a _fire_?" he countered, his own expression not nearly as impressed as he gathered she'd hoped for.

"You said you wanted to do something tonight."

"I said... I'll... I'll be up in a minute."

He shook his head, and walked back to the street to retrieve the bag, taking as long as he could to return to her, trying to wrap his mind around what he had just seen. _A fire, Rin?_

"You don't look happy," she said as soon as he walked out to join her on the deck.

"I'm just... A little confused, that's all. Where did this come from? How did you get it up here?"

On closer inspection, the stone was actually clay, and a pile of damp wood lay nearby. At least that explained the inordinate amount of smoke.

"I went out today."

"I can see that."

"I... Thought you might be proud."

He winced, and she looked at him, apologetic. "I guess I probably could have waited until you got home to start the fire, huh?"

"I can't say seeing smoke over our house is best sight to greet me when I get home from work."

"Sorry."

"Don't be." He stepped closer, and pulled her against him. "And I am happy you went out today."

"I remembered you saying once you missed the fires we used to have in Timber. We already have that gas thing inside, and I couldn't really surprise you with something that big anyway, but I've seen a few people in the neighborhood with these. I thought it might be a good substitute."

"Did those people also have wooden balconies?"

She flushed, and he looked down at her and kissed her forehead. "I think we'll be okay. How did you get this up here?"

"I paid extra at the store for delivery. Don't worry, no one came inside. I just pointed to this spot and they dropped it off and then left."

"You really had a good day, didn't you?"

She nodded, and stepped away to poke at the fire. "Except, I can't really get it to do anything but make a lot of smoke."

"That's because the wood is wet. You-"

"Oh yeah. Yeah, I remember. It's just... Been awhile."

"...Sorry."

"Hey. That's my line." She stuck her tongue out at him, and he knelt beside the chiminea. "We can go out and buy some dry wood for tonight, and then get a big truck of it later. It won't be hard to find people selling it outside of town this time of year."

"It'll make winter nicer, won't it?"

"It will." Squall reached in and took a couple of the larger pieces out, and they stared at the wood resting in his bare hands. "Though, we'll need a little practice if we actually want any heat out of this."

Rinoa laughed, and used the iron to separate the rest of what could barely constitute coals, then stood, brushing at the ash on her pants.

"You have some in your hair," Squall pointed to her, and brought his fingers to her head.

"I'm surprised you can see it. Grey on grey."

"I have your hair memorized. I can see any differences." He smiled and kissed her once, and then again, letting his fingers play in her hair. "Inside?"

She laughed, and started to reach for his hand, and then stopped.

"Rin?" He pulled his face back, a weight already heavy over his heart. "Rinoa? Rinoa, please... Don't go, okay? Don't..."

She looked at him without seeing him, and started to walk past him towards the beach.

"No, Rin. Stay here. Just... Come inside and sit down, okay? I'll bring you some tea, and we'll just wait it out together."

He took her hand, and she followed, absent. Squall led her inside, helped her sit, and as promised, brought her tea. She attended it with the same vacant stare she'd given him earlier; the one he couldn't break, regardless that it never failed to break him.

"Rinoa..." But she was gone. And all he could do now, was wait


	3. Chapter 3

Night was falling, and Squall was still alone.

He sat with Rinoa until the tea grew cold, and finally brought the mug into the kitchen, opened a beer, and took out the essays he'd brought home.

"I wasn't planning to work at home tonight," he told her. She actually looked his way and it gave him a moment of pause, but there was no trace of her in her eyes, and he sighed. "But if you promise you don't mind, I'll just take care of them now, so we have the rest of the weekend." She continued sitting, and staring. "Hey. Relax."

He coaxed her back against a pillow, and, pausing, pulled her legs up so they stretched across his, and then leaned over, immersed in the papers.

"Who is teaching these kids?" he mused, utterly unimpressed, as he always was. Halfway through the first term, and he was pretty sure he hadn't taught them any more than how to sleep with their eyes open.

"Yes, I know I was like this when I was in school. And yes, I keep thinking each year will be different."

Rinoa's eyes were half closed, and he noticed one of her fingers moving around, as though conducting music.

Eventually, he finished the essays and leaned back, and let her hair trail through his fingers.

"This isn't quite how I wanted to spend our long weekend. But, I am glad you've decided to stay home this time." Her finger had stopped moving about an hour prior, and now her eyes were completely closed. He placed two fingers against her neck, and found he was more relieved than he expected to be when he felt her pulse.

"I'm going to get dinner started." He slid to the end of the couch so to disturb her as little as possible before standing, walked to the kitchen, and turned on the light. It was growing dark inside; even reading, he didn't realize it had gotten so late. Squall frowned, and walked over to the door and flipped the lock, then went downstairs, locking the side door and the sliding door off the bedroom just for good measure. He came back upstairs to find Rinoa still on the couch, just as he'd left her, and he felt guilty for locking her-them-in.

"Just in case," he half-whispered, and realized he had no interest in making dinner for just himself. In the fridge were several glass containers of what looked like dinner preparations Rinoa had started earlier in the day, and Squall didn't care to open them and see what she had in mind.

Could he cook? Well enough. But it was almost all thanks to her, and it was different when she wasn't there. He grabbed another beer and a pack of hot dogs, and set some water to boil on the stove.

"Garden dinner tonight, okay?" Even after all these years, she still teased him about what she called "Garden Dinners," and her nickname for them wasn't far from the truth. The first couple of times she'd disappeared on him, he had tried everything he could to get her to eat, but he was quickly accepting that on these nights, he was on his own. All he could do was try and encourage her to eat enough when she was lucid.

Squall took his pathetic dinner back to the living room and sat in a chair, leaving her to the couch. He absently flipped on the tv, eventually settling on a music station, and when he was done eating, picked up a book.

Another couple of hours passed, and he resigned himself to the fact that she wasn't coming back. Or at least, not tonight.

"Bedtime," he stated, and closed his book. He knelt beside her and carefully pulled her into his arms and carried her downstairs. He lay her on the bed, slowly removed her clothes, and pulled the covers up to her chin, and after a few minutes of getting himself and the house ready for bed, lay down beside her, and turned out the light.

"Good night," he whispered, his lips pressed against the back of her head, and his arms wrapped around her. He almost felt her fingers press into his hand, but couldn't be convinced if it was real, or just his own hopes. "I love you."

There was, of course, no response. Squall sighed, and listened to the waves crash outside for a long time before he finally fell asleep.

_._

"Squall."

He felt something on his face, a warm breath, fingers running over his lips. "Squall," the voice in the room repeated.

"Rinoa," he breathed, and brought his hand up to meet the one tracing lines across his face.

He felt her beside him on the bed, one leg drawn over his, and she trailed kisses over his shoulder, his neck, his face. He turned his head to kiss her in return, and kept his eyes shut. If he was dreaming...

"I miss you, Rinoa."

"I'm here," she whispered in his ear, sending shivers through and through.

"Stay with me." He ran a hand through her hair, over her back, and pulled her closer.

"No, Squall. I'm here."

He opened his eyes to his own bedroom, to Rinoa's face pressed nose-to-nose against him, her eyes alight with joy. "Rin?"

"Good morning." She smiled, and kissed him again.

"How long?"

"Sometime in the night. I didn't want to wake you."

"You should have."

"You seemed so peaceful. I know you don't sleep enough."

"Neither do you."

"Which is why I gave you a kiss, and went back to sleep." She smiled again, and rubbed her nose against his. "And this time when I woke up, we were both here. Now, why don't we pick up where we left off before I disappeared on you yesterday?"

She kissed him again, and shifted her leg in such a way that drew his focus immediately away from the last twelve hours. He wrapped both of his arms around her and pulled her closer, and reveled in the slight moan that escaped her from the warmth of skin on skin.

There were times together when Squall felt removed from the world, like they had left their bed, their room, and disappeared to some plane where it was only him, and her, and their lovemaking. When everything else did not so much fade away, as it never existed in the first place, and it took a long time to come back down. Then there were the times like now, when everything was a reminder of being real, of being here. When everything was heightened, from the feeling of his head pressing into the pillow, to the heat from her legs where they pinned him to the bed; her hair falling over him to hit his chest, his face, and then her breath, her teeth grazing against his ears and she rocked against him. He felt everything, and locked his arms in place against her back, holding her, desperate for this contact.

These were the times he enjoyed the most, the times more grounding than transcendent. Even more-especially more-now, than in years past. Now, when "real" could be gone without warning. He had thought for the longest time he understood the desperate relief they found in each other. Instead, when things were supposed to be normal, when _they_ were supposed to be normal, it was difficult not to long for the predictability of the chaos they had known for so long.

Her breath hitched in his ear and he held her until she relaxed, held her until he joined her, and afterwards she did not move. Her weight was comfortable, and he moved his fingers up and down her back, into her hair, over the curve of her ass, his breathing slowly returning to normal.

"I do miss you," he said softly.

She raised her head, and brought a hand to his face. "I know."

"Coffee?"

"Please."

She kissed him again and rolled over on the bed, and walked into the bathroom. Squall lay still for a few more moments, trying to iron out the roller coaster of the last couple of days, to compartmentalize everything.

After more than thirty years, you change each other. Things that used to be second nature are foreign, while the strange and unfamiliar become natural. _Feeling_. Sometime over the decades he learned how-or rather, accepted the thing he supposed he always could have done-to the point that now, it was hard not to. He frowned, wondering that there was a time in his life when he could shut everything out.

Rinoa interrupted his thoughts when she walked out the bathroom and tossed a towel in his direction, and he turned his head to watch her. She stood at the closet, still naked, and the morning sun whispered against her skin; light syncopations as the sheer curtains waved beside open windows.

She never stopped being beautiful. Not motherhood, not age, not loss; the years may have changed her, but they had taken nothing he could see with his eyes.

Watching her, the urge to push everything back faded. He still felt as exposed beside her as he had the day they met, and he would cling to that as long as he could. For the rest of his life, he imagined.

"What?" She turned around, and cocked her head on catching him watching.

"You're beautiful."

"You're sleep deprived."

"You are."

"Whatever." She grinned, and pulled a dress over her head. "I'll get the coffee started."

Squall watched her leave, dressed, and a few minutes later walked upstairs to a mug already waiting for him on the kitchen counter. They walked outside together, and sat in silence. The pinks and oranges of sunrise had almost entirely faded, leaving a pale yellow glittering on the waves.

"It's..." Rinoa started, and let whatever she was going to say disappear into the morning. It was warmer than the last few days, and warm fall mornings always hit Squall with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. For summer, for spring, for years they would never get back.

"It's been a month," Squall said, finally breaking the not-quite-comfortable silence. "And it's..."

"Getting worse."

He sighed, and reached for her hand.

"I wish Edea were here," Rinoa said, and not for the first time, and the words fell heavy between them.

"I know."

Squall did not fully share Rinoa's sentiments, not usually. There was too much history, too many years watching something he couldn't control. "We could call-"

"No."

"I-"

"We're not calling anyone, Squall." She started to pull her hand away, and he held it tighter, and moved closer to her on the table. She gave him a hard, sidelong look, but wrapped her fingers around his more firmly, nonetheless.

"Not even if it could help?"

"How could it help?" she asked. "We didn't even know this would happen, how could anyone possibly help us with it? The only people who could are gone, and they took all knowledge of this with them."

"Ellone could."

"Right. She could have helped by warning us. What can she do now?"

"I don't know. But we could-"

_"I don't want anyone to know."_

He dropped her hand, and she pulled it immediately to her coffee mug, taking a dramatic sip and staring at the sea. Squall mirrored her actions, not sure if he was more frustrated with how stubborn she was being, or his own pitiful helplessness.

"Well, what do you think we should do? Do you want me to quit my job?"

"You can't do that."

"Why? That's the nice thing about what I'm doing now. I can leave, and they just hire someone else. I'm not irreplaceable."

"You are to your students."

"I have new students every year."

"You are to-"

"_You're_ irreplaceable, Rinoa. And I can't leave the house anymore without worrying about what I'm coming home to. When I saw that smoke yesterday I panicked, because the possibility that I could come home one day to the house on fire with you inside is a _real possibility._ That one day I'll go searching for you by the lighthouse and you'll have fallen. That someone will see you and take advantage of you not fighting back. And you won't let us even talk to someone else, so it..."

"It what, Squall?"

"I've spent our entire life together... I..."

"What?" She kept her eyes locked on the horizon, but he saw her soften, and she rested the mug against her legs. She took a small breath, and said, "I don't expect you to fix this."

"I just don't understand. All these years, all this time spent trying to keep you safe. The amount of shit that you and I have seen, have fought, have survived. Now the thing I've been saving you from is gone, and I'm... Useless."

She finally looked at him, and placed her hand against his leg. "You're not useless, baby. And you did save me. Imagine... I don't even want to imagine where I would have ended up without you." His eyes dropped to her hand, and she flexed fingers that were just longer than they should have been, marked with thin white lines, already faded almost invisible in the last month. "There might not even be a world left for us to sit here and have this conversation."

"Just because you passed on your powers, doesn't mean I'm not still... I promised, Rinoa. I promised."

"You kept your promise, Squall. You keep it every day." One side of her lips turned up. "We'll figure this out."

"Promise?"

Her smile crossed to the other side of her face, and she leaned over and kissed him, coffee still wet on her lips. "Promise."

_._

_May, sixteen years past_

__.__

"What's Ms. Edea doing?"

"Hmm? I think she's... Praying. Don't interrupt her, just in case she is."

"Who's she praying to?"

"To... To the sun, I think." Squall stepped back and swung his racket, knocking a bright pink shuttlecock towards Noelle, who deftly hit it back in his direction.

"Why?"

"That's a personal question, Noelle." Squall hit the birdie again. "Remember, we talked about respect?"

"Sorry," Noelle knocked the birdie back, and this time Squall missed. "Hah! Ten to two!"

"Two out of three?"

"That was two out of three. You're not very good at this."

"Hey, I taught you everything you know."

Noelle grinned and breezed past him, and scooped the birdie out of the sand with her racket. They both watched the grains fall gracefully back to the beach, occasionally catching flecks of sunlight in their descent.

"Who won?" Squall and Noelle both looked up at Cid's voice, and Squall's face immediately tightened.

"I did, sir," Noelle answered, and plucked the birdie from the net as though ashamed.

"You know you don't need to call me-"

"Noelle, do you want to see if mom needs any help?" Squall handed his racket to Noelle, who took it quickly, and bee-lined for the house.

"Squall-"

"What?" Squall cut him off.

"Why do you even bring her with you?"

"She likes Edea."

"Okay," Cid let out a slow hiss of breath through his teeth. "Why do you come, then?"

Squall's eyes narrowed, and he turned away. "I'm here for Rinoa."

"You don't tru-"

"You know I don't."

"Tch." Cid stepped forward so the two men stood beside each other, and Squall was suddenly, strongly aware that he was unarmed. Cid turned to him and started again to speak; talked about the weather, the fishing boats coming through, the immigrants from Esthar that, once rare and few, were starting to increase.

"How long's Edea been out there?" Squall finally asked, once it was clear Cid wasn't leaving.

"Not long before you arrived," Cid answered, and there was something in his voice that caught Squall's attention. Something he couldn't identify, but something decidedly out of place.

"Would it be better for Rinoa to just go out to her? We need to get back soon."

"No," Cid answered quickly. "In fact, maybe it's best you just leave now."

Squall turned sharply. "What about dinner?"

"You obviously don't want to be here, and if your daughter is so frightened of me, maybe it's better to just come back another time."

"We didn't fly out here so Rinoa could flip through Edea's old books. We came out here so they could talk."

"Squall, you-" Cid's eyes widened, and Squall turned. Edea was walking towards the house, and waved at them when she saw them facing her. "Well, it looks like they'll get the chance."

His choice of wording did not go unnoticed, but it passed from Squall's mind once they reached the house, lost to Noelle's cheerful descriptions of besting her father at badminton, and Rinoa's quick kiss on the cheek, reminding him to play nice.

Relief, he thought later, laying on the thin mattress in the small inn that opened sometime after the war. Rinoa lay in the second bed beside Noelle, and the bed was cold without her. _Relief._ Cid's words gnawed at him, and it would be a long time before he found out why.


	4. Chapter 4

_March, twenty-one years past_

_._

"I think we should live here."

The tide was coming in, and a wave chased up the beach, almost soaking their toes at Rinoa's statement. Squall took a step back, and she took a step forward, and she laughed.

"Here?" Squall asked. "We barely got the place functional the first time. We can't raise a family here."

"Not _here_, here," Rinoa said. "I just mean... Here. Centra. We can build a new house. We come here at least once a year anyway just to visit. And Timber's getting so big. We could live here where it's quiet, and then we wouldn't have to travel so far all the time."

"Rinoa, there's nothing here."

"Is so." Another wave crashed, and Rinoa wiggled her toes in the sand as it ran back out to sea beneath her feet. "The Esthar immigrants. They've been heading this way for awhile. Did you know the Dobes owned land out here? They secured it after they left the first time. Then they sold it, after Laguna lowered the shields."

"I know that."

"So why do you feel like there's nothing out here? It's farm country."

"Because it's farm country. And we aren't farmers. What would we do out here? What would Noelle do?"

"There's a few other kids. We should build them a town."

"Rinoa-"

"Please?"

She stretched one of her arms towards him, and after a moment, he took her hand. Rinoa pulled him quickly towards the surf and he stumbled against her.

"Hey, careful! You almost knocked us down!" She grinned at him, and kissed him as another wave knocked against them.

"You sound so upset by that possibility."

"Well, we are the only ones out here." She gave him a suggestive smile, and slid one of her hands under the edge of his shirt, her fingers grazing bare skin.

Squall raised an eyebrow. "Really, Rin? Do you know how many things live in the ocean?"

"Wouldn't be the first time." She kissed him again, but conceded. "Fine. But what about building a town?"

"It's... Not as easy as you make it sound."

"Why not? You can help."

"SeeD isn't a construction company."

"You fixed the transcontinental bridge."

"We helped a larger contracting firm fix the bridge."

"And you helped with all the restoration in Balamb, after the war."

"Again, Rinoa. We helped. What you're talking about is starting from the ground up. We can't-"

"Can't, or won't?" She turned, and looked down the beach. "We could put houses on the shore, and build the town up behind it. A perfect little beach town."

"-Not to mention, Centra is still in a complicated place politically. And there are the tribal nations on the western end, I'm not sure how they would feel about us building vacation homes."

"Not _just_ vacation homes. And I think you and I both know a thing or two about complicated politics."

"I thought you were done working in government?"

"I didn't say I want to run for office or anything, but yeah, I wouldn't mind helping."

"It's a pipe dream, Rin. It's a beautiful idea, but even if we got started today, it's doubtful we would see anything come out of it in our lifetime."

"Noelle could. She could live on the beach. If she has children, they can come here."

Squall sighed, and Rinoa grinned in triumph. The tide was well past where they stood now, and he edged his foot towards hers, rubbing their toes together under the sand.

"That itches," she said, and giggled. "So, in our town, what do we do with this place?" She gestured around them, and started walking toward the lighthouse.

"Leave it, I guess."

"Should we build it back up?"

Squall shook his head. He took her hand and led her a few steps up the shore, so they could walk more easily against the waves. "No. We did that once."

"We'll have to do something, so no one tears it down."

"Hey, it's our town, right? No one can touch anything without our permission."

"I knew you'd come around to my idea."

"Tch. Hypothetically speaking, what about the lighthouse?"

They were only a few paces away, and Rinoa waited to answer until the sand gave way to the rocks that made up the base. "Well, we'd have to get it working again, right? If we're going to have a town here, we'll have trade, so we'll have ships. We can't have them crashing ashore and messing everything up." She started climbing.

"Good point." Halfway from the shore, Squall lowered himself to one of the larger, flatter rocks, and pulled Rinoa, facing him, into his lap. "So, we'll get it working again," he said in her ear, and she shivered, and kicked her feet at a few small stones below the rock they occupied.

"You're trying to distract me."

"Is it working?"

"We're planning our dream town, no distractions."

"My dream town is filled with distractions." He kissed her neck, down to her collarbone, and she pulled her legs onto the rock behind him so they pressed lightly against his back.

"You're no fair," she said, and kissed his ear.

Squall said nothing, but pushed her skirt up and unzipped his pants, and their conversation quickly ended, lost to heavy breathing and soft moans, and the sound of the tide hitting the rocks.

By the time they started back towards the orphanage, it was nearly dark, and Rinoa shivered against the evening breeze.

"Do you think we could?" she asked.

"Could what?"

"Live here one day. Make this place a home."

Squall tightened the fingers he had laced through hers, and when she looked up at him, he was staring down the beach, his eyes tracing the shore until it curved away and turned into sky and sea. "I don't know. Maybe. Not easily."

"Nothing's easy though, is it?"

Squall looked back towards her now, and they stopped walking, a sad smile between them.

"Loving you is easy," he said, after a pause.

"Squall-"

"What loving you means? I know. But loving you is as easy as breathing."

Rinoa sighed, and leaned against him, and Squall dropped her hand and wrapped his arms around her waist, and added, "It always has been."

"It's not always going to be that way."

"Hey." He pulled a hand to her chin and tilted her face towards his. "Tell me you love me."

"You know I do. No matter what else happens, I will always love you. But I can't control all of me, and that part..."

"Then I'll remind you."

Rinoa rolled her eyes, and Squall leaned down and kissed her forehead. "I've been a terrible influence on you," she said. "How am I supposed to despair about the future when I've done such a good job teaching you not to?"

"Your loss. Come on."

They linked fingers, and walked the rest of the way to the car under the watch of the night's first stars.

_._

By ten the coffee pot was empty, and Squall was hungry. Rinoa was still sitting outside, and he stood in the kitchen, wondering. After several minutes, he opened the doors and said, very clearly, "I want to go to Winhill."

"What?"

Rinoa looked at him sharply, and he folded his arms across his chest.

"I want to go to Winhill."

"...Now?"

"After we grab something to eat, but yes. Today."

"What about work? The morning is half gone already. We wouldn't even get there until almost dark, and we'd have to leave tomorrow for you to be at work-"

"I'll call for a sub on Monday. Like I said, I'm replaceable there."

"Why do you want to go to Winhill? I told you, I'm not talking to Ell-"

"She's not there right now. It's June's birthday, she'll be up in Dollet."

"Oh. That is this weekend, isn't it?" Her eyes widened. "We weren't expected to-"

"No. I sent her a card a few days ago, and told her we were sorry we wouldn't be able to see her."

Rinoa relaxed, but only just. They were silent for a moment, remembering lost friends.

"Sometimes I think we should have been there for her more," Rinoa said. "Seifer-"

"We didn't even meet her until she was a teenager. And it wasn't Seifer's style to do things out of obligation."

"I know. But...they would have taken Noelle."

"When she was younger, maybe. June's old enough now. Anyway, she's got Elle."

"Yeah."

Rinoa bit her lip, and Squall ran a hand through her hair. "So?"

"So what?"

"So, let's go."

She reached up and gave his hand a small swat, hiding a smile. "It's too risky, Squall."

"Rinoa-" He sat down next to her. "No it isn't. You've barely left this house in the last month. You won't let me call Ellone, you lie to Noelle about how you're doing. We need... We need to do something. And right now I want to get away."

Rinoa sighed. "I'm not going to win this, am I?"

"No."

She scrunched her nose, and he leaned forward and kissed it.

"Fine. But Squall-"

"I won't let you out of my sight."

"Promise?"

"I promise. Now come on, let's get packed. There's a flight to Timber in two hours, and we can take the train from there."

"You conveniently have this idea right before there's a flight out? This wasn't as spontaneous as you want me to believe, was it?"

Squall shrugged. "I checked the air schedule earlier in the week. I thought... I kept it as a possibility. The timing just seemed right."

"You're sneaky."

"I just plan ahead."

"Fine, you win. Let's get packed."

They stood, and walked together into the house. In their bedroom, Squall dug through the back of the closet for their suitcase, and Rinoa started pulling clothes out of the dresser.

"What?" Rinoa was giving him a concerned look, and he shook his head, unaware he'd stopped moving, the suitcase still unzipped on the bed in front of him, to watch her.

"Nothing."

"I'm still here, Squall. Hopefully once this weekend is enough."

Squall apologized, and zipped open the suitcase and started folding the small pile of clothes Rinoa had started on the bed, keeping one eye on her the whole time.

It was a habit. Rinoa laughed it off most of the time, and told him it was a little embarrassing, but he couldn't help but watch her. Usually, in the little things. Folding clothes. Washing dishes. Sitting on the deck, reading. If asked, Squall couldn't say when it started, but he supposed he must have done it as long as he'd known her. As far back as their first days together, back in the war, when he kept part of his attention trained on her at all times to make sure she was okay, that she wasn't hurt. Since their first nights together, when he lay awake, watching her sleeping, listening to her breathe and feeling the heat on her skin, memorizing those things that reminded him they were both alive. Watching her in the dark times; sensing, waiting, hoping. And for the last month, he watched to take in every part of her that might one day leave and never come back.

What part of his life had ever not been about her? About keeping her safe? The time before her was so long ago and so purposeless, it may as well have been someone else's life entirely. Just a broken boy who got into fights and cried for his sister.

If Rinoa was transference, it had lasted so long at this point he was more his delusion than he was himself.

On their tenth wedding anniversary, Ellone asked him if he knew who he was without his wife, and he didn't have an answer. He didn't know who he was without her, because he hadn't known who he was _before_ her. The line was so blurred he couldn't even see it. Ellone had given him a hug, then, and told him she loved him, and that she never saw Rinoa as her replacement, just as his other half.

"You're still watching me."

Squall looked down, surprised that Rinoa had almost filled the suitcase.

"We're going for two nights. Do you need that much?"

"Are we really going to have this argument again?"

One corner of Squall's lips tugged into a smile, and he shook his head and started refolding her clothes.

"Is that all you're bringing?" Rinoa plucked one shirt from the suitcase, and Squall promptly took it from her and placed it next to a pair of jeans.

"Like I said, we're only going for two nights. Go get our toothbrushes."

She nodded, and Squall could hear her filling a toiletries bag before she walked out of the bathroom and handed it to him. "See? I can pack light sometimes."

"I never said otherwise."

She leaned forward and kissed him, and then lay back on the bed.

"This is fun," she said.

"What?"

"Packing. Planning a trip... It's like we're normal again."

Squall let out a laugh that was half a grunt, which made Rinoa giggle in turn. Squall stared at her for a moment and at once they fell into a fit of laughter, one that lasted until he noticed the tears streaming down Rinoa's cheeks.

He slid the suitcase across the bed so he could lay beside her, and folded her into his arms, where she pressed her face into his chest, still laughing, still crying.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's just... _'It's like we're normal again.'_ Now is when things are supposed to _be_ normal."

"I know."

"Now is when we're supposed to whatever we want, Squall! We were more normal, when we... Well, when we weren't."

"I know," he repeated, and pushed her hair behind her ear.

"And I can't even call Noelle to find out how she's doing, because after all these years of talking about it, and trying to talk her out of it, and knowing it was the best thing to do, I can't... I can't even ask her if she's okay, because I can't stand the guilt I feel whenever I think about what I gave her."

"She knew-"

"But she didn't! She didn't know all of it, because _we_ didn't know all of it! We didn't know this would happen, Squall! That life would be better if I were still a Sorceress!"

Her words hung on the air, echoing through the lazy sunlight, and the surf in the distance. She sniffled softly, and Squall continued to trace his fingers across her face and into her hair.

"We'll tell her," he said softly. "Nobody told us, but we'll tell her."

"How?" she asked. "How do I tell her... How do I let her know what I've done? I... I miss them, Squall. We've spent our whole life together feeling like they were a curse, but... I miss them."

Squall continued to hold her, listening to her breathing slow.

"You know I never thought they were a curse," he finally said. "They were part of you. But they were just a part, and I still have you."

"But..." Rinoa sighed, and slowly sat up.

"But what?"

"...Nothing." She walked to the closet and pulled on her shoes, and Squall got up to do the same. For the next few minutes they worked on making sure they had everything, securing the house, and debating about where they were going to go for lunch.

"What were you going to say, before? In the bedroom?" Squall prompted again, while they stood at the edge of the driveway waiting for a cab.

"Squall.. You say you still have me. But... Sometimes...you don't."

_._

Rinoa opened her eyes to darkness; to grey earth and a thick fog on all sides, and froze.

She knew this place.

"Squall," she said, and stretched her arms in front of her. They were not, as she expected, the arms of her seventeen-year-old self, covered in torn and muddy fabric as they usually were. Instead, she saw her arms as they were now. Thin, bare, and aging. She ran her thumb across the back of her wedding ring, and pulled a strand a grey hair over her shoulder.

Well if she wasn't seventeen, why was she here?

Rinoa sighed and cursed under her breath, and started walking. Was she still supposed to look for Squall?

_Of course_, she told herself. _It doesn't matter how old we are, or where we go. If I'm here, he must be here. I'll find him._

The fog was thicker than she remembered, but she kept walking, as she always did. On, and on, and _since when was this journey so long?_

"Mom?"

Rinoa stopped and turned sharply towards the voice. "Noelle?"

"Is this it?"

"Where are you?"

Noelle's voice was on all sides, and Rinoa could see nothing but fog.

"I'm right here." And then she was. Noelle, standing beside her, a near mirror image of Rinoa when she was younger. She was wearing the same red dress she'd worn the day of-

"Well, is this it?"

"Is this what?" Rinoa stepped closer, but was afraid to touch her, afraid she'd disappear.

"Time. Where you found dad."

Rinoa nodded. "What are you doing here?"

"I don't know. I thought you brought me here."

"...Oh."

They looked around, avoiding eye contact. Finally Noelle asked, "So, do you know what to do?"

"Find your father," Rinoa said automatically.

Noelle nodded, and fell into step beside her mother. They walked in silence, and Rinoa tried not to think about what it meant, her age and Noelle's presence. She opened her mouth, wanting to at least talk if they couldn't get answers, when Noelle let out a gasp.

"There!" she cried out, and started running ahead.

"Noelle, wait!" Rinoa ran after her, but Noelle's head start was too great, and the fog was circling around her, forming a barrier that slowed her down.

"Mom, come on!" Noelle's voice sounded miles away, and Rinoa watched, her legs rooted in place, as Noelle knelt beside a dark shadow on the ground. There was a flash of light, and then at once the fog cleared, and Noelle was no longer there.

"Noelle!" Rinoa shrieked, and, finally free to move, ran to the familiar edge of earth.

Except it wasn't Squall lying on the ground. She saw as she approached the red dress, the black hair, and a terror rose in her, far stronger than the one she was used to.

So strong, she didn't see the great wings stretched across the ground until she had tripped over one, and landed, sprawled, beside the body.

"Noelle," she whispered, and pushed herself onto her knees.

But it wasn't Noelle who lay there. It was herself, seventeen, her wings stretched out on both sides, and Rinoa knew, _knew_ that this younger self of hers was dead.

And she screamed.

* * *

_Ronin-ai drew an absolutely gorgeous piece of art for the first scene in her chapter, posted to her deviantArt page and the WiB community on dA. I'm still utterly enchanted by this, and honored she took the time: my dot deviantart dot com/ art/Rising-Tide-345187747_


	5. Chapter 5

Squall was ready.

He was absently watching the skyline of Timber drop into view when he felt her change, and he reacted on instinct. She hadn't moved, hadn't even changed her breathing, but his hand was over her mouth before he stopped to think about it, and just in time.

She woke screaming. Squall pressed harder against her mouth, and with his free hand, pinched her nose closed. In seconds her eyes opened wide, and for the smallest moment, he was looking at the feral creature he'd spent so many years helping her fight.

He moved his hand immediately from her nose to her hair, and whispered to her, her name, his name, where they were, shielding her body with his until the screaming stopped, and he dropped his other hand.

"Rin..."

She stared back at him, panicked, embarrassed, and he pulled her against him, keeping his back to the aisle of the plane.

"Is she scared?" a small voice asked, and Squall saw young eyes looking at him over the seat in front of them.

"A little bit," Squall said.

"My sister is too," said the boy, and the sound of a child whimpering registered in Squall's mind.

"I think you're supposed to have on your seat belt." Squall pointed at the indicator lights, and the boy looked sheepish.

"Sorry!" he said, and the face disappeared. More sounds of the plane started to form; the tone drop of the engines, the low murmur of voices, and a baby crying near the front of the plane. Rinoa mumbled something against his chest.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that," Squall said, and loosened his grip around her shoulders.

"Who are you talking to?" She leaned away and started fumbling at her feet for her purse.

"There's a little boy and his sister in front of us. He thought you were scared of the landing."

Rinoa let out a bitter laugh, and settled back in her seat. "The landing? I guess you could say that."

"Do you-"

"Not now."

He took her hand, and frowned at the small tremors he felt. "You're shaking."

"Please. I'll tell you, just... Not now. Not here."

His frown deepened, but he said nothing more, and soon they had landed. They waited as they usually did until most other passengers were gone before joining the line to exit the plane, and walked together in tense silence through the airport.

Squall was loading their suitcase into the back of a cab when he felt the tug at his jacket, and looked down to see the boy from the plane standing there. He was older than Squall had originally guessed, and he was holding a bright yellow rose.

"Hi," the boy said.

"Hi," Squall replied. "Is your sister feeling better?"

The boy nodded, and pointed to a car several feet away where a couple stood watching them. A little girl, no more than five or six, was with them, her face pressed into a bouquet of matching flowers. Squall gave them a small wave, and they nodded. The girl waved enthusiastically.

"Squall?" Rinoa's voice drifted from the backseat of the car, and the boy ran around to greet her.

"This is for being brave," he told her, and handed her the flower.

"Thank you!" she cried, and brought the flower to her nose, eyes confused but her smile bright.

"I need to go now. Don't be afraid anymore, okay?"

"Okay. Thank you again."

"You're welcome!"

The boy stepped back and gave Squall a wide wave, and ran off to join his parents. Squall closed the trunk of the cab, and slid into the seat next to Rinoa. He told the driver to take them to the train station, and turned. "That's who I was talking to on the plane."

"I guessed that much. Noelle was like that."

"You were like that."

Rinoa smiled. "Yeah... Now I'm the one who gets scared."

"Be fair to yourself. You've never liked flying."

"Neither have you."

"No... I haven't."

They didn't say much the rest of the trip, and watched as the cab wound them through the city they had for many years called home.

"It's so different," Rinoa mused, a sad quality to her voice. They were sitting at a stoplight, and Squall recognized the building next to them as the old Timber Maniacs studio. It finally closed about five years before they moved, and now the front had been remodeled; it looked like it was nothing but offices, sandwiched on one side by a tall banking center, and a condo unit on the other. On the other side of the street was a full block of construction cones and concrete, a large sign right on the corner advertising the name of the contracting company. "Did you see anything when we were landing? Have they torn down all of Roshfall yet?"

"We were on the wrong side of the plane. The skyline is really nice though, even if it is a lot bigger. Look-" They were on a new street now, and Squall pointed as they crossed one of the main roads. "Your trees are still there."

He watched Rinoa's face change, a calm breaking across it for the first time since they finished packing. "Do you think they still have the lights?"

"I definitely think they do."

She smiled, and reached across the cracked leather seat for his hand. "Thank you."

Squall smiled. Minutes later the cab stopped, and they were through the train station, onto the train, and settling restlessly into their seats.

"Part of me is always going to feel like this is home," Rinoa said. She pressed her face against the window and watched while Timber faded into the sprawl of shopping malls and gas stations, into subdivisions, and finally, the mountains.

"Part of it always will be home. We have a lot of memories here."

"We really do, don't we?" She leaned back, and Squall watched her eyes flutter shut. He thought she had fallen asleep, until she spoke again."How did you know?"

"Know what?"

"On the plane. You knew, like you used to. How?"

"You're ready to talk about it?"

"...No. I guess not. Not out in the open like this, at least... I feel... I feel so...exposed." She opened her eyes, but kept them focused on the window, on the passing world.

"I'm still here, Rinoa. Just like I've always been."

"I know." She raised her arm and beckoned him to rest against her, and he did, Rinoa with her back now pressed to the window, and she brushed her fingers through his thinning hair. "I've never doubted that."

He reached for her other hand and brought it to his lips, and in minutes, was asleep.

_._

_December, twenty-two years prior_

_._

"A toast!"

A mix of laughter and groans rang in the room, outweighed by a less-than-delicate clanking of metal on glass.

"Haven't we already toasted like, three times?"

"Selphie, you're going to break that!"

"Well then, listen!" Selphie lowered the water glass and exchanged it for a wine goblet.

"Squall's still bringing out dessert, wait for him," Rinoa's voice chided again.

"We ought to toast to Squall's newfound sense of hospitality." Irvine took a casual sip from his glass and tipped it towards Squall as he entered the room.

"I didn't hear anyone else volunteering to help," Squall said, and raised an eyebrow just so in Irvine's direction. He lowered a tray with a large, rolled cake on it to the center of the table, and took a seat beside Rinoa. "Unless you were offering to go back for drinks?"

Irvine winked, drained the rest of his glass, and headed for the kitchen.

"You didn't actually make this, did you?" Selphie leaned her head closer to the cake, and poked at a candied evergreen leaf with her finger.

"Oh, Squall's become quite the baker, didn't you know that?" Rinoa said, completely straight-faced, and began to slice the cake. "What else was he going to do during all the time off he had this fall?

Selphie stared at her, open-mouthed, and Rinoa pressed a plate towards her, verging on a fit of laugher.

"You're kidding?"

"Oh no, it's always been a secret love of his." Selphie turned to the head of the table, where Ellone looked back at her with a small smirk that could have rivaled one of Squall's on any day.

"You made this, didn't you Elle?"

"Take a bite, see if it's edible. If it is, Elle made it. If not, Squall." Irvine re-entered the room with a tray of steaming mugs.

"Hey now, some people in this house can actually cook!" Rinoa said, and stood to help Irvine. The smell of cinnamon, oranges, and apples filled the room as they passed around mugs.

"Ellone's in th' house, isn't she?"

Rinoa stuck her tongue out at Irvine, and he blew her a kiss in return.

"Now can we toast?" Selphie breathed deeply into her mug, and gestured at the cake plates in front of everyone. Or at least, almost everyone. She frowned, and asked, "Where did Laguna go, anyway?"

"To check on Noelle," Rinoa replied.

"That was almost twenty minutes ago." Ellone pushed her chair back. "I'll go check-"

"I'll go," Squall said, and the table turned to look at him. "What?"

"Nothing," Irvine said quickly. "Selph?"

She beamed. "To everyone!" she cried, and raised her mug in the air. The others mimicked her, if not with slightly less enthusiasm.

"Are you sure?" Rinoa's voice was low against Squall's shoulder, and he turned to her with half a smile.

"I need a minute, anyway," he said, and clinked his mug against hers and took a drink. "Wish me luck."

She swatted his shoulder, and took a small sip of her own. Squall heard her turn back to the table and start telling the others about Noelle's most recent accomplishments, and he paused at the top of the stairs, embracing the quiet. He stood there for several minutes, letting the heat from his mug press into his hands, and allowed himself to appreciate the moment-moments-he was in.

He exhaled, and softly opened the door to Noelle's nursery.

Laguna was leaning back in a chair, Noelle in his arms, and Squall's first thought was that he was asleep. He stood on the threshold, one hand still on the door, and just-watched.

Noelle, who _was_ asleep, was little more than a lump of blankets, and Squall admired, as he often did, just how large that lump of blankets had become in the past weeks. The man holding her, on the other hand, looked smaller; his face was thin, framed by loose strands of grey hair that he still kept long. Squall looked for himself in that face, and without the normal motion and conversation, he thought he could almost see it.

He turned, and Laguna spoke.

"I'm not asleep."

Squall looked to him again, his face unchanged. "Could have fooled me."

"Well, maybe a little. I think babies emit sleep vibes."

"You sound like Zell."

"You don't think so?"

"I don't sleep much." His voice held a finality to it that Squall immediately regretted, and he walked further into the room and took a seat as if to apologize.

"It is too bad he couldn't make it."

"His mother-"

"Rinoa told me. I don't blame him for staying with her, but it would have been nice to see him. So, did someone send you up here to find me? I didn't miss dessert, did I?"

Squall shook his head. "Not yet, but you might if you stay up much longer." He watched his father and daughter for another minute, and added, "I volunteered to come up here. Nobody sent me."

Laguna smiled, a subtle smile he'd crafted especially for Squall. A smile that was muted in the face of his normal exuberance, and one built around an understanding that had taken years to reach.

"I uh... It's just pretty loud down there. I needed a moment of quiet."

Laguna nodded, and Squall pretended not to notice the knowing shine in his eyes.

"Well, I'll try not to talk to much, then."

"Thank you." Squall took another sip from his mug, and, as an afterthought, offered it to Laguna. Laguna declined, and Squall took to staring into it, the dim lamplight of Noelle's room catching the little flecks of orange and turning them to glitter. Laguna's eyes were closed again, and Squall absently pushed at the empty rocker beside him.

"She looks like you." Squall stared at the rocker, and did not respond right away.

Finally, "I think she looks just like Rinoa."

Laguna shook his head. "She looks like your mother."

Squall started, and returned both hands to his mug. "She does?"

"You're getting hung up on her eyes. Those are Rinoa's eyes, but the rest of her..." Laguna stared down, and ran a finger across Noelle's nose and smiled. "Sorry I took so long up here. I was... Oh, nevermind."

"What?"

"Well looking at her... Especially when she has her eyes closed like this, I can pretend like it's you."

Squall felt a jolt in his stomach, and stared hard at the floor. Somewhere downstairs he heard a wild burst of laughter, and it felt like it was coming from another planet.

"See? They think it's funny, too." Laguna laughed softly to himself, and one of Noelle's arms twitched.

"I don't...think it's funny," Squall said. He felt Laguna look his way, but kept his eyes on Noelle.

_His mother?_

"You know," Laguna said, his voice hesitant. "I thought we were past all this."

"...This?"

"Well, me. Ever since you started coming to visit. I got to see you and Elle together. I never knew you, but I still got to watch you get married, and I at least felt like we had a relationship."

"We do. You don't think so anymore?" Squall frowned, drained his mug, and grimaced at the sweetness of it now that it was cold.

"We do in the present. But looking at your daughter... I guess I've been so focused on moving on from what's already happened, or worrying about what you missed, I never really thought about everything _I_ missed. I guess that's a pretty selfish way of looking at things, isn't it?"

Squall looked at him, but Laguna was still staring down at Noelle, something in his eyes Squall recognized as regret, but mostly he saw love. The same sort of love he saw whenever Rinoa looked at him or Noelle, or he felt when he looked at his family.

"I guess it's backwards, but I think I understand you more now than I did then," Squall said, and was not surprised when Laguna gave him a curious stare. "Not with all of it. But if something ever happened to Noelle, if someone ever came after her and I thought Rinoa was safe... I just mean, it makes sense to me now, why you left my mother. You always tried to tell me you didn't leave _her_, but I... I hope I never have to make that decision." The words were becoming difficult, and Squall went back to pushing at the rocker. He could feel Laguna smiling though, and felt his own lips twitch against his will.

"Thank you," Laguna said.

They were silent again, but a different kind of silence, one that was causing a threatening burning in Squall's eyes, and he kept them open, focused, and was grateful when Noelle started to whimper.

"She slept for awhile, didn't she?" Laguna shifted her, but her cries started to grow stronger as she woke up.

"She also gets that from her mother." Squall smiled to himself, and imagined the face Rinoa would make if he'd heard him. "Who we should probably go see, since I think someone's hungry."

Laguna stood slowly and tried to keep Noelle's blankets intact, and handed her towards Squall, who shook his head.

"You can carry her," Squall said. They stood beside each other, and Squall felt awkwardly like this was one of those times when a hug might be appropriate, but wasn't entirely sure what to do about it. Noelle let out a loud wail before he had to decide, however, and a minute later he heard Rinoa on the stairs.

She stopped in the doorway, and a look crossed her face, one that almost made it possible for Squall to see things as she must have seen them; three generations, in the dim nursery light, and a shift in mood she probably felt from the stairs.

Rinoa smiled, and stepped towards Laguna. "Come here, hungry girl," she said, and took Noelle into her arms, settling back into the chair Laguna had occupied.

"I'll uh... See you downstairs." Laguna scratched his head, gave Noelle another long look, and walked out of the room.

"You're okay?" Rinoa asked, folding down her shirt.

"Actually..." Squall watched Noelle as she found her mark, and lost himself, as he so frequently did, in admiring the workings of the tiny person he had somehow, against all reason and expectation, helped to create.

"Squall?"

He blinked, and leaned down to kiss Rinoa's head. "Yes. I'm actually, completely good."

_._

Winhill smelled like fall. Somewhere in the meadow someone was burning leaves, and the smoke mingled with the sweet and heavy fragrance drifting from the kitchens at the inn. There were wreaths of gold and scarlet waving greetings from most of the doors they walked past, and bales of hay were stacked at random on the main path, playing host to bright orange pumpkins.

"Remind me why we didn't move here instead?" Rinoa paused, and the rattle of their suitcases on the gravel along with her. Music drifted lightly from an open window, but the only other sound was a gentle wind that nudged falling leaves along the road.

"Because somebody wanted to build our own town by the beach."

"That person was crazy," Rinoa said, and closed her eyes against the waning sun. Squall frowned at her word choice, and started moving again.

"What?" Rinoa asked.

"That person was enthusiastic, and passionate. Not crazy."

Squall saw his wife shake her head, and felt a twinge of guilt for breaking the mood over what he knew was an innocent remark.

They said little else until they checked into the inn, and Rinoa stood at the window, staring out at fields dotted orange with even more pumpkins, at the meadow preparing for hibernation. "I'd miss the sound of the ocean, though," she said, as though the conversation had never stopped.

"You think? You thought you would miss the city, too."

"_You_ would miss the sound of the ocean. You've never lived without it."

"We did in Timber."

"Well aside from that. Anyway, I like our house."

"Me too."

Squall joined her at the window, and Rinoa leaned against him. "It is so much prettier here though. All the colors. And real fires. Thank you for suggesting this."

Squall smiled. "You're welcome."

"Downstairs?"

They left the room and the inn, and resumed their walk through the village. Almost everywhere they went looked vastly different now, but Winhill was mostly untouched; a tiny pocket of tradition and calm, tucked away from the rest of the world.

In the main square, they made their requisite visit to Raine's old pub, and left carrying a mug of steaming cider each to a table that gave them a view of the setting sun. They watched until the sky was little more than a greyish purple, when Rinoa finally spoke.

"Time compression."

Squall looked at her sharply. "Your dream?"

She nodded.

"Like usual?"

Rinoa paused. Across the square a woman was calling out to two children who came running and giggling towards her, and she chided them for being out so late.

"I was... Now. That dream has always been about the past, but this time I was there in the present. Except, Noelle was with me. And I didn't find you, I found...me. At seventeen."

Squall knit his eyebrows together, and Rinoa met his gaze. _I'm here_, he willed to her. If she couldn't hear it, he at least knew she could see it in his eyes. _I'm here_. "Why do you think...?"

"Noe-Noelle?"

Her voice carried an odd lift at the end, and Squall set down his cider to reach across the table. "You think Noelle brought you there?"

"No-Noelle's _here_. That's-"

"Mom? Dad!"

Squall watched Rinoa's failed attempt to mask the horror that crossed her face, and he turned to see his daughter walking towards them across the square.

"Noelle!" He stood, and hurried to greet her before she reached their table to give Rinoa a chance to gather herself. "Why aren't you with June?"

"Ellone forgot a few things. I was in Timber until later today anyway, so I told her I'd come down here and pick them up. But there wasn't a train out until later-I'm actually running behind, but then I saw you. Why didn't you tell me you were coming here? Are you going to Dollet?"

"Last minute decision," Squall said. Noelle gave him an odd look, not fully believing his spontaneity, and finally looked past him where Rinoa was slowly rising from the table.

"Mom..."

"Hi, honey."

Noelle moved forward to give her mother a hug, and Squall watched them, straining to see anything that might cross between them.

Something Cid told him once flashed brightly in his mind, and Squall pushed back the feeling of resentment, trying to give it clarity. Something he had not understood thirty years ago, but he wished he could clearly recall now. Something about Rinoa and Edea in the first few years. Whatever it was had made Cid uncomfortable, and Squall cursed himself for not paying more attention.

"Did you just get in?" he heard Noelle ask, and Rinoa confirmed they'd only just arrived.

"When is your train?" Squall asked.

Noelle checked her watch, and Squall watched as first embarrassment, and then opportunity crossed her face. "In one minute. My chronic lateness apparently hasn't been affected by recent changes."

This time it was Rinoa's face that darkened, even as Noelle laughed off her joke. "Noelle, that wasn't funny."

"Mom-"

"We should-" Squall started, and was cut off by the train whistle in the distance. He sighed, and tried again. "Since it looks like you'll be here all night, we should probably have this conversation somewhere else."

Rinoa looked panicked and Noelle annoyed, and Squall gestured to the two mugs that now held cold cider. "Noelle, please carry those inside."

"Dad-"

"Noelle."

She rolled her eyes, but picked them up and disappeared into the pub. The square was now lit by street lamps and strings of lights, and Squall took one of Rinoa's hands and squeezed it. "Before you ask, no, I did not know she would be here. I think you need to talk to her, but you know I wouldn't do that to you."

Rinoa nodded, and looked into the glowing windows of the pub. "What... She's going to want to talk. What am I supposed to say? What if I..."

Another memory surfaced, of standing with Cid on the beach and watching Edea in the distance.

"I can lie. Or I can tell her the truth. Or..."

"...Or I can."

Rinoa sighed heavily, and leaned against Squall's chest.

"You guys are at the inn? Did you actually eat dinner yet? Whatever they were cooking earlier smelled amazing. Oh, I'm so glad Ellone asked me to come down here, I really, really miss you." Noelle glided towards them, and kissed them each on the cheek. "Come on!"

She headed down the path, her dark hair sweeping after her like a shadow, and reluctantly, Squall and Rinoa followed.

* * *

_First off, a little tribute in this chapter to Ashbear, with the lights on the trees. My city has those during the holidays so it's always stuck out to me visually and is kind of ingrained in Timber for me now. _


	6. Chapter 6

_Early April, ten years past_

__.__

Rinoa stared at the ceiling, counting the hours by watching the sun travel at an angle from one corner of the room to the other. She guessed at night; it was dark for a long time after the sun disappeared, and when the moon finally showed her face, she knew it was well after midnight.

She practiced stillness. When she was still, she could ignore the bands around her wrists and ankles. When she was still, she was left mostly alone, and alone was where she wanted to be.

When someone else did enter it was brief, hushed. A check for vitals, scribbling in a chart, and the frantic steps of someone trying to get away from something quickly, without giving the impression they were hurrying.

Once, she cried. Once, when the restraints became too much, because she just didn't know.

Where was Squall? Was he okay? Was he alive? They had always been so certain they would know if something happened to the other, but in the room her head was cotton. Her immediate sensations-hunger, thirst, the beeping of machines-those hardly registered under the barriers chained to her, set up in the walls themselves.

He could be dead, and she was stuck in here.

Just before moonrise on the fourth morning, new footsteps entered the room. They were not hesitant, and a second set shortly followed. Rinoa kept her eyes shut.

Thin fingers touched one of her wrists and in seconds the chain was unlocked, and then the other. The second person worked the chains on her ankles, and she gasped at the sensory flood, and was nearly sick.

_Squall_. The room still contained her, but without the chains she could break through, if not weakly. _Squall!_

And there he was. Alive, and with a dim anger, though she couldn't be certain the muting was on his end or hers.

Rinoa finally opened her eyes, and immediately knit her brow in confusion. "Q...Quistis? Dr. K.?"

Quistis smiled thinly, and Dr. Kadowaki checked her watch.

"We need to hurry."

Quistis nodded, and Rinoa sat up, a pain shooting between her shoulders. "Wait-Hurry? Where the hell have you _been_, Quistis? We thought you-"

"On an assignment," Quistis responded shortly. "And we're getting you out of here, but we need to do it quickly."

"Squall-"

"He'll be okay. But if you're still in here when they release him-"

"-Release him?" An image of black flames and falling earth flashed in her mind, and Rinoa again felt the urge to be sick. "He didn't do anything!"

"I'm afraid not everyone will see it that way," Dr. Kadowaki said. She was doing something to the computer connected to Rinoa's monitors.

"Can you walk?" Quistis asked.

"Why wouldn't I-"

"Just try."

Rinoa swung her legs over the side of the bed and slowly brought herself to stand. Every muscle in her body was screaming at her, but she took a few steps, and stretched her legs.

"Put these on." Kadowaki pulled out pants and a pair of flimsy shoes from her bag, and Rinoa listened to her closely as she dressed. "When we leave the room, we're going to the left, and then immediately to the elevators, and to the roof-and before you ask, we can't take the stairs because they have cameras. We cut the feed on the one outside your door and set the playback loop to run the last hour. We've got transport waiting, but they won't wait long."

"Is Squall-"

"All this time and you're just as one-track minded as before." Quistis' voice softened, and for the first time since arriving, she gave Rinoa a genuine smile. "He's not here, and it's best if we get you out of here while he's still under surveillance. Ready?"

"All set." Dr. Kadowaki stepped away from the monitors, checked her watch again, and opened the door. They stepped into the hallway of what looked more like a prison than the hospital Rinoa had assumed she was in, and spent a tense, silent minute waiting on the elevator. This time of night they went straight to the roof level with no interruptions, and Rinoa looked around, expecting a helicopter, or airship, or _something_.

"Where-"

"This way." Quistis gestured behind the elevator bay and Rinoa's stomach turned when she saw a line stretching from the top of their building, over the edge, and presumably down to the street.

"You've got to be kidding."

"The rest of us don't have wings, princess," Dr. Kadowaki unclipped three carabiners from her belt, and handed one each to Quistis and Rinoa. Quistis nodded, and dropped a bag she had slung over her back to the ground and pulled out a small device. Rinoa watched her fasten it to the pole that held one end of the zip line, and opened her mouth to ask about it, but Quistis beat her to it.

"The zip line is secured electronically. This is a timer that will cause it to unlock so we can reel it in from the ground. I'll let you two go first and then I'll set it to give myself enough time before it releases."

"We've only got waist harnesses, so make sure you hold on to your line," Dr. Kadowaki said, and thrust a bundle of straps and buckles at Rinoa. "Do you know how to wear it?"

Rinoa nodded, and stepped into the harness.

"Good. I'm going first to make sure the coast is clear. Quistis knows the signal and she'll let you know when to go."

Dr. Kadowaki stepped to the ledge of the building and clipped her carabiner to one of the cables hanging from the main line, and turned. "Are you okay?"

Rinoa stared at her. "There are a lot of ways I could answer that question, you know."

"That's a good enough answer for me." Dr. K. winked, and disappeared.

"Your turn," Quistis said, and Rinoa stepped forward and clipped herself in as Kadowaki had done.

"Quistis..."

"Not now. We can talk once we get out of here."

Rinoa nodded again, wondering if she was capable of responding in any other way. "I just... I missed you. I never thought the first time we saw each other again would be you busting me out after I tried to blow up half the free world."

Quistis gave her a shrewd look and was about to speak, but something on her belt beeped before she got the chance. "Not quite half," she said, her tone light, though her voice choked at the end. "Come on. I'll meet you down-"

A gunshot sounded and Rinoa, on instinct, reached for a spell that would shield them, but to no effect. The chains and barriers in her room were not all the measures used against her; as soon as she reached for the magic she felt inhibitors in her very blood. The spell stalled inside her and she tried not to scream as she felt it burning.

Quistis was yelling at her to go, but more shots were starting to fire, and there was shouting on the other side of the elevator banks.

"Rinoa, _go!_" Quistis hissed. Rinoa was fumbling with the carabiner and Quistis was keying something into the timer device she'd attached to the wire.

"I'm not leaving you up here!" Rinoa cried out, and felt something small and hot sail past her.

"Get down there, and don't make me tell you again." The timer was now blinking red, and Quistis pulled Rinoa's shaking hands up and physically lifted her over the edge of the building, against Rinoa's jerks and protests.

_"I'm not leaving-"_

"I'm sorry Rinoa. I missed you... I really, really missed you too."

Rinoa was suspended over the street, Quistis' hands held around her wrists to keep her from her descent. They stared at each other, seconds filled with ten years' worth of love and apology told without so much as a word. A thousand things she should have said passed through Rinoa's mind, and then without warning, Quistis let go, and she was shooting towards the street.

She heard nothing over the sound of the wind in her ears, and was sobbing by the time she hit the ground. Kadowaki unclipped her, and someone else, someone tall, caught the zip line that sped into a reel shortly after Rinoa landed.

"Quistis-They found us, there was gunfire, she-" Rinoa choked out, unable to speak through her hysterics. "We have to go back!"

"Get in," the other person said, a male voice, blank and even, and jerked her towards a dark van.

"S... Seifer?"

Rinoa didn't even bother to look at who was driving., she just felt them speeding off. Kadowaki punching something furiously into a tablet, and the man who had pushed her into the van drew back his hood, revealing a weathered face, and thin blond hair.

A new set of sobs caught in her throat and Rinoa was certain she was going to choke on them. She sniffled, wiped her nose on the skirt of her hospital gown, and fell against Seifer, crying wordlessly against his chest. After a moment, he brought a hand to her shoulders, and his chest heaved with a breath Rinoa was certain he hadn't wanted to escape.

In the darkness, the van bumped along, the night eventually breaking into day and still, they travelled.

_._

_Late April, ten years past_

__.__

Rinoa approached the beach in the sharp light of early morning, barefoot, empty handed, and alone. Her shadow was long in front of her, stretching yards ahead, into the water, into the waves.

The sun annoyed her in its promise of a cheerful summer day. It was a day meant for life, for reading on the deck. But, it made her smile. If today was the last day she was going to see, she was glad to see the sun. She stopped at the shoreline and let the surf crash around her, and wondered how many times she had stood in this spot. How many grains of sand she had touched, felt wash beneath her feet out to sea. Had it been long enough that some may have come back? Here she was, seventeen, visiting this place for the first time, and wishing the sea would swallow her, take her from the fate she'd been cursed with. Now sitting with Edea, learning, listening, practicing. Now watching Noelle squeal with delight the first time she felt the splash of the sea. She thought of the memories that were not hers; orphans running freely before the world gave them swords and guns; a couple, aging, their time lost before it began.

She thought of making love to Squall, exposed to the sky, to the sun or to the moon and stars, and as she thought of Squall, she struggled not to cry.

"I'm sorry," she said to herself, to the sea. "It's... Our love..." Rinoa shook her head, and worked the desolate, lonely feeling that was keeping her from speaking into anger. "We knew it would happen one day. It's just how it has to be."

"No it isn't."

Rinoa jumped at the voice.

"I thought you were in Balamb."

"I thought you were in bed."

They stared at each other. Squall sat on a rock not far from where she stood, his shadow absorbed into the shadow of the lighthouse. His hair was glowing red in the morning light, and his face was blank.

"What are you doing here, Squall?"

"Here, as in Centra? Or here with you? Am I here to say goodbye? Or am I not even worth that?"

"Don't-"

"You were going to go, just like that?"

"Go where? I'm-"

"-Don't treat me like I'm stupid, Rinoa. You at least owe me that dignity."

Squall remained seated, his voice even, and his expression never changed. Rinoa wavered under his silent anger. "Please stop."

"You've put up this... Block. Ever since we got back. And I'm tired of it."

"Squall..."

"I'm tired of it, because it doesn't work. And all this time I thought, maybe if I gave you time, you'd tell me when you were ready. But you were never going to be ready, were you Rinoa?"

Rinoa sighed. She could run-behind the rocks, where the boat was tethered. Would he follow her? Right now, she doubted it. But his face-that horrible, empty look-that would be it. And in that, her resolve faltered.

"It's not about you, Squa-"

"You've made that more than clear-"

"-_and_ it's not about us." She walked towards him, paused at the base of the rocks, and climbed up so she was just a few feet away. "How could I... How could I say anything to you? How was I supposed to look at you and know it was the last time I would ever see you? To tell you good... I _couldn't_. There's nothing I could have said that would have made this easy."

"Because what you're doing-"

"And that's why. Because no matter what I tried to say, you were going to try and talk me out of it. Right?"

Squall grunted.

"And that's... It's wrong, Squall. This should have happened years ago, before it got this far."

"What happened wasn't your fault-"

"Tell that to Laguna."

Finally, Squall flinched, and Rinoa drew in a breath, finally feeling she held some degree of control.

"But you can't, can you? Because he's dead. Because of _me_. Because I had to get involved in things that didn't concern me."

"Laguna—You—You won the war. If you hadn't stepped in-"

"You'd still have your job. You'd have use of both your legs. Quistis, Laguna, everyone else..."

"Laguna died for his family. He'd been trying to do that since before I was born, and he finally succeeded."

"He shouldn't have been involved."

"In thirty years do you think if anyone ever went after Noelle I would care that I'm retired?"

"But that's exactly my point!"

"What-"

"Even if I hadn't gotten involved, the war _started_ because of me!" Rinoa was louder now, her cries shrill, and she tried to bring her voice down. "Because there are always going to be people hunting me, Squall. To use me or to kill me or anything else they can think of. And it had been getting bad... So bad. You know that better than anyone."

Squall winced, and Rinoa raised her head triumphantly. "See?"

"Those times-"

"Precursors. Every loss of control, every loss of _me_. We left Timber and I left power and it... It hurt. And it hurt me that it hurt, because that's not who I am. And the fact that it started before..."

"So your solution is to what? Die at sea?"

"Squall, we talked about me transferring this... This curse to our daughter. Our _daughter_, Squall. That was our great plan. Keep the succession in the family. This is why I never wanted to have children in the first place!"

"You-"

"Oh, don't look so wounded. I know I wanted Noelle. I know I fought you and fought you and put myself through hell to get her, I know that. But I mean... Before. Because of this."

"Because you knew this would happen."

"How could it not?"

A wave broke against the bottom of the rock pile, and Rinoa stared down at it. She thought she missed the expressionless stare Squall had met her with, over the hurt he was showing now.

"How could it not?" she repeated. "When in history has a sorceress ever maintained her powers and not lost herself to them-"

"Edea was possessed-"

"-or had somebody use them to their advantage? Edea locked herself on a boat for twelve years and she still didn't escape it. And we went for so long without anything... I started to believe maybe we were different. Maybe _we_ were what made it different."

"We are."

"But we're not, Squall. We're really... We are so involved in the succession it was stupid of us to think it ended when we came home all those years ago. It _starts_ with us."

"But we aren't the first. _You_ aren't the first."

"I'm not talking about over all of time, but... Look at our lives. Look at your sister. Look at SeeD-you've changed so much and now that you're gone... We know where SeeD ends. We know where the succession ends. Everything is already so set in motion, we were never going to get to live the lives we hoped for."

"..."

"What?"

"This... You, Noelle, _everything_ about my life is more than I'd hoped for."

"Half the people we love dead? Your wife hunted, because she caused massive destruction to an entire territory? Knowing the fate that awaits your daughter? Squall-"

"Rinoa, before you, the only thing I hoped for was an early death in battle and you know that. If I could become a SeeD and do my job well for a few years, if I got very lucky I'd be good enough to be sent out on a mission tough enough to kill me. _That_ is what I hoped for. That was life for me."

"Squall-"

"I-" His voice caught, and Rinoa felt tears in her eyes. "You, Rinoa. You are... Everything."

"Then wouldn't you rather it be this way? That I go now, before it gets worse?"

"Go where? You can't... If you die, someone will inherit the succession. We agreed on Noelle because... Because we could teach her. We could show her what magic was, she could see how it didn't have be... Corrupt. And you _aren't_. Galbadia was losing, my SeeDs were dying. You... Someone else will rise. Someone we don't know. And you'll die for what?"

"I'm not planning on dying. For that exact reason."

"Then were are you-"

"Esthar." Rinoa looked down when she said the word.

"You're going to the Memorial."

She closed her eyes, and Squall's statement crept across the rocks as if it meant to choke her.

"It's-"

"You are so..."

"What, Squall?"

_"Selfish."_ He spat out the word, and she looked up. Gone was the hurt, gone was the mask. His eyes were burning, and Rinoa found herself more angry at _his_ anger than at his words.

"_I'm_ being selfish?"

"You were just going to leave. Without a word to me. So I could, what, come home to an empty house, look for you, only to find you were never coming home? You were going to leave me to explain to our daughter why her mother was gone forever? And you were going to put yourself in a place where we could _see_ you, and never be able to do anything about it. And-"

"_You're_ the one who's being selfish!" Rinoa burst out. "You think that how this affects you is more important than the fact that I am actually _dangerous_ to the rest of the world! That it would be worse for Noelle to be upset and confused when I leave, than it would for her to inherit this curse that will completely destroy her? That your own happiness is worth more than the safety of our friends, of complete strangers. And even if nothing happens, people will still hunt me. And then they'll hunt Noelle. And eventually Noelle will have to make this decision and we might not be there to help her. If I go to Esthar now, none of that has to happen. Nobody else will use me anymore. No more wars will break out because of imagined alliances with me-"

"Just stop-"

-"No-"

"-Dammit, _stop_!" Squall's shout echoed across the rocks, and Rinoa flinched. "You didn't cause that war. Esthar used you as an excuse to do what they've wanted to do ever since Laguna's assassination. Since before then. The only thing that kept them from acting before was that DC hadn't done anything to warrant an invasion, and you being in Timber had them terrified of retaliation if they tried an attack on Galbadian soil. As soon as you left Timber they were free to pretend like they thought it was politically motivated. You were an _excuse_ Rinoa, not a cause."

"But-"

"-And the only reason they used you as an excuse is because it was easy. If you had walked out of Timber and into the Memorial they still would have found a reason to attack DC. Laguna spent his last several years in office on the edge of a civil war because of those rebels and when they finally took him out of the picture it was only a matter of time. Except if you had done that, Esthar would have won. You _won_. I don't know how many times I have to tell you that before you believe me."

Rinoa was silent. They were sitting now under the sun, the shadow of the rocks moving behind them, and Rinoa turned away to look eastward, down the beach towards their new home. "I have... Two fears. Above anything else in the world, there are two things that frighten me past the point of reason. And one of those fears came true that day. And I don't... I don't care why. I don't care if I won the war or anything like that. All I can think about is... If it happened once, it can happen again. All I can picture is opening my eyes and seeing a crater in the middle of a city, and now that it's happened... Squall, that just means is can happen again."

He sighed. "I... Promised you. Years ago. Almost in this exact spot. Does that... Doesn't that still mean something?"

"You promised to never leave me, no matter what."

"And to _help_ you. And you're not beyond help."

"But you were..."

"About to die."

"What if you had? I lost control just at the idea of losing you."

"But you didn't. And now..." He tapped the heel of his injured leg against one of the rocks. "At least you don't have to worry about me being in combat anymore."

"Someone could break into our house and kill you while you're asleep. Or you could die in a car accident."

"I could. But that's nothing new. Or you could stay here, and we can enjoy living in this town you convinced me to build, away from politics, and away from war."

"But what about Noelle?"

"We stick to our original plan."

She gave him a long look, and finally turned to look at the old orphanage, at a loss for what to say. She heard Squall move, and felt him slide behind her on the rock, pull her against his chest.

"When I woke up in that hospital and you weren't there, I broke a doctor's nose."

"What?" Rinoa tried to snap at him for changing the subject, but laughed against her will.

Squall nodded, his nose bumping the back of her head.

"They had me hooked up to all these wires and my leg was bolted into what looked like a steel cage, and they wouldn't tell me where you were. So the next time the doctor came in, I pretended to be asleep and then punched him when he got close enough."

"Squall!"

"All that did was ensure they kept me sedated for the next few days."

"I can't imagine why."

"You were just... Gone. You know how we always thought we'd know if something happened?"

She nodded, and smiled to herself.

"They took me into surgery and when I woke up, you were gone. I've gotten so used to having you there I didn't even know what it felt like anymore until it disappeared. I thought..."

Rinoa pulled one of his hands to rest on her leg, and laced her fingers through his.

"How were you planning on getting to Esthar, anyway?"

"Sail."

_"Sail?"_

"I've been getting the boat ready for a few days."

"That would have taken you almost a month. Did you really think I wouldn't find you in all that time?"

"Well I wasn't going to sail directly to Esthar. I figured I'd island jump and then take the ferry over and get a train in Winhill. There's no direct route you wouldn't have been able to trace, and there's, um, not a lot of public flights to Esthar right now."

Squall dropped his head against her neck and Rinoa squirmed, his breath tickling her. "I still would have found you."

"Obviously. I couldn't even get off the island."

She felt Squall smile against her, and he tightened his grip on her fingers, longer since Esthar.

"We... Do make things different. That's... I've never doubted that. I think sometimes, about how things would have turned out if you'd... Well, if we weren't together. You would have died young, and I'd probably be sealed, or else wearing something really sexy while I ruled the world and had no idea who I really was."

"Well there's nothing wrong with part of that vision."

"I don't need a lot of power to do that."

Squall responded by letting his other hand run up Rinoa's leg, over her belly and towards her chest. She grabbed it, and brought his fingers to her mouth and kissed them.

"Let's go home?"

Rinoa nodded. They stood up together, and at the base of the rocks she turned again towards the old house.

"Thank you."

Squall gripped her hand, and kissed her forehead. "You're welcome."

"Not just... Now. Thank you for... For being stupid enough when we were younger to think you could help me. Because... you have."

"Not so stupid, then."

"No, I still think swearing yourself to a sorceress at seventeen was pretty reckless, but... I guess we were both pretty reckless."

"I didn't swear myself to a sorceress. I swore myself to you. And I still do. What the rest of the world thinks about you or about us lost all meaning for me the first time I thought I'd lost you."

"We're so messed up, aren't we?"

Squall feigned a look of confusion. "This is the only thing I've ever known."

"I just mean..."

"I know what you mean."

Rinoa smiled.

"Anyway, I brought home a present for you from Balamb, and if you'd left, it would have been a hell of a trip to try and return it. And it will probably go really well with that bottle of wine Irvine sent as a congratulations on winning the war present."

"It's like, ten o'clock in the morning, Squall."

"Not in Balamb time. And Ellone isn't bringing Noelle home until tonight."

He raised an eyebrow, and one side of Rinoa's lips quirked into a smile.

"I love you."

He took her hand. "I love you too."

_._

Dinner began with Noelle updating them cheerfully on the last month.

"You should see June now," she was saying. "You know, I never knew Quistis but I've seen pictures and it's incredible. I mean, people always think I look like you, but they could almost be clones." She gestured to Rinoa, who raised an eyebrow at Squall. "Anyway, she's so grown-up now. I can't believe she's already an adult."

"You make it sound like you're so old," Rinoa said, and smiled.

"She just grew up a lot in the last few years, you know? I guess... Well, she still misses Seifer, it's really not fair they barely got to know each other. But it's just weird to think, this is the kid that used to run around after me all the time and now it's like we're the same or something."

"Is she doing okay?"

"She's..." she paused. "Better. You should probably talk to Elle about it." Noelle busied herself with a slice of bread, and Squall caught Rinoa's eyes. Rinoa shook her head, as if to tell him not to pry, and he reached for his water glass.

"How's Ivy?" Rinoa asked.

At that, Noelle brightened again, and blushed. "Oh, wonderful. She wanted to come down here with me, but June asked her to stay so she did. We've finally got most of the furnishings up in the house, almost a year later. And actually... Well, I wanted this to be a surprise, but... Well..." Noelle's blush deepened. "We're talking about getting married." She looked down again, but her smile remained.

"Congratulations," Squall said, and Rinoa's smile widened.

"That's wonderful, honey!"

"Thanks. I'm really sorry, I really wanted it to be a surprise, but well... It's not really a surprise to us. Marriage seems a lot less committal than other parts of our relationship, you know? Well of course you know. And we'd talked about it before anyway, but since things... Well, changed, I can't really describe it. Things are just different, and at this point there's really no reason not to."

"So she's still okay with everything?"

"More than okay. I know... I know you'll be really upset with me for this, but for the first couple of weeks afterwards I tried to get her to leave. I just didn't think she really understood what it was going to mean, but I didn't think she would leave on her own even if she wanted to because..." Noelle threw a look at Squall. "Well, because _somebody_ made a really big deal over responsibility and honor and connectedness, and I was worried she'd stay because she was afraid of you, dad."

Squall shrugged. "I was _trying_ to scare her."

"Well it didn't work. I tried kicking her out, I even tried to just leave, but she wouldn't let me. She said... Well, nevermind what she said, that's personal. But yes, she's still okay with everything, to answer your question."

Squall saw Rinoa trying to keep a straight face, and he shook his head. Noelle looked like she was going to speak again, but before she could their food arrived, and they spent the next few minutes caught up in their meals.

Finally Noelle continued. "So, how are you? I appreciate you giving us our distance, but I haven't heard anything from you since right after everything."

"We-"

"Don't talk with your mouth full, Noelle."

Noelle rolled her eyes at Rinoa, and dramatically swallowed her food. In the pause, Squall looked over. _It's okay. It will be okay._

"Take two. How are you?"

"We're fine." Squall had been running through every answer to this question that was possible from the moment Noelle addressed them in the square, and he was still at a loss. But by the look on Rinoa's face, he was determined to find a way to talk. "Although, we may need to give your mother lessons on how to build a fire the old fashioned way."

"I'm sorry?" Noelle's eyes widened.

"I wanted to surprise your father, so I bought one of those patio fireplaces, and..."

"We're still getting used to doing things without help," Squall finished. "So don't get lazy just because you have an easy way to do things now."

Noelle rolled her eyes again. "Honestly it's weirder getting used to _having_ an easy way. And even then it's not that easy, not for me at least. I honestly don't really feel the need to use them that much. But you never let me use para-magic either."

"That's because it's illegal outside of military use."

"I know that, dad. I just mean my life is pretty boring, so I don't really need it for much. You two were the ones fighting wars and changing history, you did all that for me."

"It's not all the movies make it out to be," Rinoa said to the wistful look Noelle had taken.

"So you've told me a thousand times. Anyway, I uh... I'm kind of glad. It's just me and Ivy, trying to be as normal as possible."

Squall's chest tightened at that, and he was not surprised when Rinoa excused herself a few moments later.

Noelle and Squall focused on their food in Rinoa's absence, but after a short time Noelle looked to her father, and spoke. "You're lying."

Squall raised an eyebrow, and tried not to grip his wine glass too tightly. "I am?"

"Something's wrong. You two made this into a huge deal, like you were handing me a death sentence, and for the first few days you wouldn't leave me alone. Then I went back home, and I've hardly heard anything from you since. You're not giving me distance; something is wrong."

"We, uh..." Squall cleared his throat. "It's.." Once again, a thousand different responses flew through his mind, and none of them were right, and he wished, not for the first time, she hadn't inherited so much of Rinoa's intuition. "This is new for us too, Noelle. Like I said, we're getting used to doing things-"

"You're not."

"Please don't interrupt."

"I'm sorry. But you're not getting used to doing things without magic, I know you stopped using para-magic after Esthar. What else is it?"

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. "Renewed interest in our bedroom life, if you really need to know."

Noelle almost choked on her rice and Squall fought both laughter and the urge to apologize. Of all the inappropriate things he could have said, he picked the one that was probably more embarrassing for him than for Noelle, but he achieved his goal. Once she stopped coughing, she glared at him and said, "Fine, fine, I'll stop asking."

"Asking what?" Rinoa took her seat at the table, and looked from Noelle's red face to Squall's slight flush.

"Dad said that uh... Well congratulations I guess, that you two are enjoying your new lives so much. But I'm really better off not knowing that."

Rinoa continued to look confused and Squall changed the subject back to June, and the birthday party, and Noelle jumped at the chance to talk about something else.

Hours later, after dinner, after Noelle persuaded them to go for another walk, after sitting together by the giant fire in the lobby and talking, after a meaningful look from Rinoa, Squall headed upstairs by himself. He lay in bed, wondering at how now, now after Garden, and magic, and wars and witches, his days could be so different. In time he fell asleep, and dreamt of Rinoa as he had when they were young; of losing her and being helpless to find her.

It was much later when he awoke to a frantic pounding on the door. He opened it to find Noelle, sobbing, and he knew what was wrong without her having to speak.


	7. Chapter 7

"M... Mom..."

"What happened?" Squall feigned confusion. He reached for Noelle's shoulders and pulled her towards him, and she tried to compose herself enough to speak.

"She's... She's _gone._"

He was torn; this was what Rinoa had feared. He had talked her into coming here, assured her it would be fine, that he wouldn't leave her side-but he did. And now, that thing she'd never wanted to happen, had. But...

"Gone where?"

"No, dad... She's just... She's..."

_But you need this._ "Noelle..." Squall pushed her back enough to see her face, and she looked up at him, wholly lost, and not for the first time.

Rinoa rejected the idea of children for years, on account of who she was. What she was. Squall never argued with her, because of moments like this. Because of the way Noelle looked at him now-a look that was utterly, completely certain that he would know what to do. Because he was her father. Because if he couldn't help, nobody could, and just the thought of that responsibility overwhelmed him. Once Noelle was born, from the first time she gave him that look of absolute trust, while no less terrifying, being her hero was something Squall was only happy to do.

Except in the moments that placed him in conflict with her and Rinoa, where the only two people who he'd ever been willing to utterly sacrifice himself for were at odds, and he was going to let one down, or anger one, no matter what he chose.

"Daddy..."

We_ need this. I'm sorry._ "I meant... Is she still downstairs, or did she actually walk away." His voice was soft, a mix of defeat and apology, and no small amount of relief that somebody else finally knew.

Noelle's face changed, as he expected it would. For a moment her tears stopped, and her helplessness was replaced with shock, with worry. "You..." She stared, her voice weak. "This... This isn't the first time, is it?"

Squall shook his head. "She didn't want anyone to know."

"That's... Why you stopped calling." Betrayal crept over her face. "That's the real reason."

"...Yeah."

"You... You should have told me!" She was louder, and Squall stepped back into the room and gestured for her to folllow.

"We can talk about that later. Is your mother still downstairs?" Squall pulled a pair of jeans over his sweatpants, and grabbed a sweater out of their suitcase.

"She was still on the couch... I couldn't get her to move, I just... I didn't know what to do-"

"Coming to me was all you could do." Squall pulled his jacket out of the closet just in case, slid the room key into his pocket, and led Noelle down the hall to the stairs.

"What... What _is_ it?"

"We don't know," Squall answered honestly. At the bottom of the steps he scanned the room, but Rinoa was gone.

"She was right-"

"She'll be in the flower fields. Take your coat."

Noelle stared at him for a second, her eyes wide and confused, and Squall pointed to the empty chair she'd occupied most of the night where her coat was draped over one of the arms. He watched her walk over to it, and tried to convince himself he was doing the right thing.

Noelle only tried a couple of times to speak once they were outside; Squall was not answering her yet, and they fell into tense silence while they walked. Most of the town was dark now, and the stars were out in force.

"It's really pretty," Noelle said, and gestured upwards when Squall gave her a puzzled look. "The stars. You never see that many in Dollet."

"Too much-"

"-Light pollution. I know. You've told me over and over, that's why you fought for that lights out ordinance in Centra."

"Mmm." Noelle had a teasing tone to her voice, and Squall couldn't find it in him to play along.

"Look-you were right." They were on the edge of the fields, and ahead of them was a slight, dark shape, walking ever further from the town. "Why there? How did you know that's where she was going?"

Squall did not answer. He was walking faster now, Noelle almost running beside him to keep up. It didn't take long for them to catch up to Rinoa, and Squall placed his hands on her shoulders, and studied her, despite the dark. She was shivering, and it was all that connected her to the rest of the world. Like every other time, her body was nothing but a shell. Squall ran his thumb across her cheek, pushed back her hair, but she remained as empty as always.

"Dad..." Noelle trailed off, and Squall started, so used to going through this alone. He shrugged off his coat and wrapped it around Rinoa's shoulders, and turned heavily to Noelle and nodded his head towards town.

But Rinoa resisted. Squall frowned, and again looked closely at her face. Her eyes were shrouded, the thin sliver of moonlight only just reflecting off her skin, giving her a ghostly look. He shivered.

"Time to go," he said softly. Noelle was shifting her weight from foot to foot, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. "Go ahead. We'll be right behind you," Squall told her. She hesitated for a minute, looked between her parents, and, taking the message, started towards town. Squall was not surprised to see her slow down considerably once she was a few paces away.

"You can't stay here, okay?" He wrapped one arm around Rinoa's waist and reached across himself to take one of her hands, but she still refused to move. "Rin..." He sighed. "Well, fine. If it's memories you're after..."

Squall stared at her sadly. Her shivering had increased, but she made no move to warm herself, or gave indication that she knew she was cold. Still, there was something...

He looked up, where Noelle had stopped moving entirely, apparently mesmerized by the night sky, which, Squall supposed, was a good enough excuse for waiting. He watched her for a few minutes, and then turned back to Rinoa. Her vacancy was no less than he'd come to expect, but there was something more..._her_ in it this time. He wondered, if they could just stay out here, if maybe she just needed more time... But then Rinoa gave a violent shudder, and Squall shook his head quickly, and swept Rinoa into his arms and carried her across the fields. Something in his eyes prickled, and he blinked, hard, and was grateful that Noelle did not try to speak for most of the walk back.

"Won't they ask questions inside?"

They were past the square, almost to the inn, and Squall's fingers pressed tightly into Rinoa, as though afraid she would slip away entirely.

"Not this late," he replied. "She could just be sleeping."

In the inn, Squall headed straight for the stairs, while Noelle went to gather the rest of their belongings from the chairs by the fire. Squall fumbled with handle on the door to their room, pushed it closed behind him, and lay Rinoa on the bed, where he ran his hand along her face and leaned down to kiss her. She almost looked sad, but Squall could not be sure how much of that was his own projection.

In minutes, Noelle knocked. Squall watched Rinoa for another second, and then stood up and opened the door.

"Here's her coat," she said. "Is there... Can I do something?"

Squall raised an eyebrow, and walked the coat to the closet.

"I mean... Nevermind."

Something like frustration flashed across Squall's mind, but he held his tongue. Noelle was scared, and taking his frustrations at his own helplessness out on her wouldn't do anything.

"Want a drink? I was... Well, I was bringing it to Dollet, but since I didn't make it up there tonight... I could use a drink."

"...Sure." Squall took a bottle of wine from Noelle's shaking hands, and gestured to one of the armchairs by the window. She sat down and pulled her legs to her chest, resting her head on her knees so that her hair partially obscured her face. She looked so much like her mother in doing so that something almost like a smile nudged at Squall's lips while he poured the wine into two small glass cups. He passed one to Noelle, and they looked at each other with twin stoney expressions, and clinked their glasses together half-heartedly.

"So how long has this... How long has she..."

"Almost from the beginning," Squall answered. He took a sip of wine without really tasting it, and watched Rinoa's chest rise and fall where she lay on the bed.

"Do you know why?"

"We have a few guesses. She doesn't like to talk about it though."

"I can't imagine why."

Squall did not turn to Noelle, but did not miss the dark tone in her voice either, or the small flare of guilt it caused him.

"You should have told me."

He sighed. "I know. She didn't know how."

"So you think it's related-"

"-to the succession? Yeah."

"Why?"

Squall did not answer at first. Rinoa would be furious with him for having this conversation at all, and yet...

"Something similar happens, if you stop long-term GF use cold turkey."

"GF-oh, right. Those things." Noelle had been young, very young, when Squall, having forgotten most of his own childhood, stopped using them entirely, unwilling to risk forgetting his daughter's childhood as well. "I thought they just affected your memories."

"Well, they do over time. But we had a couple cases of people who stopped suddenly after years of heavy use, who would just..." He gestured towards Rinoa. Noelle made a face, and Squall shrugged. "Why do you think I spent my last years focused on phasing them out?"

"For all the good it did."

They shared a look. Noelle had never fully understood why Squall maintained involvement with Garden as long as he did, even if he'd already left by the time she was old enough to really understand what it meant.

_But you commanded the organization that existed to... to kill mom. You were charged with her execution! And she just... And she was just _okay_ with that? You were? That was just your life?_

Then June. Then Seifer. Squall tried not to speak poorly of his old-school? employer? life?-or at least, not to Noelle, but after so many years there was no hiding it. And in that knowledge, their relationship grew stronger with her understanding that he had not remained there out of what Noelle had assumed was loyalty to Garden, but the unwavering dedication to her mother that had driven him for as long as he had known her.

"If that's what they want to do, that's their own problem now. My terms of leaving had nothing to do with anything but them staying the hell away from my family." His voice had a tone of finality to it. Garden was far from his favorite subject.

"How's school this year?" Noelle asked quickly.

Squall finished his glass before answering, and Noelle was ready, tipping the bottle to refill hers as well.

"Same as always. More students each year."

"But that's good, right? It means Centra's growing."

"I guess."

"It's not going to end up like Timber. It's too far away from everything else to be a big city like that."

"You're quite the expert."

Noelle shrugged. "Ivy and I were just talking about it the other day. Dollet's gotten pretty big too. You remember that little beach on the other side of the cliffs we used to go to sometimes when I was little? The one you and mom liked because it was away from the resorts and stuff? That's like what Old Dollet used to be now. You have to go pretty far down the coast to get away from the hotels and stuff. Ivy loves it, though. Of course, it feels rural to her, being from Esthar."

Squall watched the wine coat the edges of the glass; he was only half listening, the rest of his attention focused on the bed a few feet away.

"It's a shame you couldn't see more when you... Well, when you were up there last month. But... i guess we all had more important things to think about then."

"How are you handling everything?" Squall asked abruptly. Noelle looked at him, an eyebrow arched in an exact imitation of his. "Sorry."

"It's..." Noelle was now giving her glass light swirls. "You and mom prepared me well."

"Meaning?"

There haven't been any surprises, how about that?"

"Noelle."

Her cheeks reddened slightly. "Well I haven't had any of the surges mom warned me about. Not yet at least. But you said she didn't start getting those until a few years later anyway. I have had a couple of really bizarre dreams though. Scared Ivy half to death on some of them. For all the times you talked to her, you apparently didn't do a very good job of warning her about those. But maybe you did. Mom told me, but they're... Nothing like what I expected."

Noelle got very quiet for a minute, and Squall fought the urge to reach out to her. "I actually... Well, it's part of why I missed the early train today."

"You had a dream today?" Squall asked sharply.

"Yeah. Thought I'd take a nap before traveling." Noelle took another sip of wine, apparently having taken no notice of Squall's change in tone. "It kind of shook me a little bit, and since Ivy isn't here... It was a couple hours before the train, but I just... Needed to clear my head."

Squall was quiet, debating on whether he should ask her to explain or not and wishing like hell that Rinoa was awake, but Noelle continued, "Well I guess you've got more experience with these things than Ivy does, anyway."

"Experience-"

"With listening to them of course." Noelle now gave him an odd look, just now noticing his distraction. "You don't mind, do you?"

"No." Squall emptied the rest of the wine bottle between their glasses, and listened as Noelle began to describe her dream, even though he didn't need to.

"It was... Well neither of you ever really wanted to talk about it. I can see why, now," she said when she was finished. "Did it ever... I know she must have been there a thousand times in dreams. Did they ever mean anything?"

"Just memories," Squall said, less sure than he sounded. "She would dream memories from her predecessors sometimes, too. I guess you're just getting one of hers. You'll probably get more."

"Oh, great." Noelle rolled her eyes, and Squall attempted a smile. "Well there are probably a few things you two have done that are scarier for me to see than the edge of time."

"It's grounding," Squall shrugged, and Noelle pretended to gag. "I doubt you'll dream about those times. They'll be among the most human. But-" He gave her a pointed look. "That doesn't mean I need to know how often you've tested that theory."

They avoided eye contact for a moment and focused on their glasses; Noelle broke first, letting out a small giggle that turned into a full laugh, and Squall's smile broke out in spite of himself. They turned, in hopeful unison, towards the bed, where Rinoa lay unchanged, and their laughter died out at once.

After several minutes' silence, Noelle set her empty glass on the table and asked quietly, "How long does it normally last?"

Squall took a moment to answer, the guilt of sharing this secret starting to flare back up. Something about sharing a moment of joy while she lay like that hit him with this betrayal like he'd been doused in ice water. He blinked, drained his glass, and set it on the table beside Noelle's and stared at the pair of them.

Was it guilt? Or was it, and Squall pushed back the thought before it had a chance to fully form, the smallest bit of resentment? That for a month he'd spent nights in silence, nights talking to her without her even moving her eyes in response. Times when he came home to an empty house with no idea if she'd gone to the store, if she was at the lighthouse, or it she'd wandered into the ocean and been swept out to sea-and he endured it, alone.

_For you,_ he thought. _Always for you. I've relived the most terrifying time of my life again and again, for you. And it's done nothing. _I've_ done...nothing._

"It varies," Squall finally said. "She's come back in an hour. Once it took almost two days."

"And you just..."

"Try and keep her safe."

"How did you know where she'd be, tonight?"

"She..." _If this helps me help you, then I'm not sorry._ "At home, she gravitates to the ruins of the old orphanage. We think it's because of their significance to us... To her. Here, those fields..." He paused. "More than anything, I just...knew." They'd never told Noelle the full story, never told anyone. He looked away. Noelle had grown up with parents who could tell if the other was hurt or sick from a continent away, and had always found it terribly romantic, and Squall wasn't sure he could stand seeing the look on her face when he felt so traitorous.

"And has it... Gotten better?"

"It hasn't gotten worse."

Noelle sighed, and looked at her mother, a look in her eyes that Squall recognized, having seen it on Rinoa so often.

"I... I know you're going to say no, but... I want to tell June."

"June? I thought you'd say-"

"Oh did you honestly think I'm not going to tell Ivy?" Noelle waved a hand dismissively. "Have you and mom ever had a secret from each other you kept more than a week? You can't even buy each other birthday presents most of the time."

"Fair enough. Why June?"

Noelle bit her lip, which immediately put Squall on guard. Lip-biting was usually a sign she was expecting to be scolded.

"Well... Please, please don't be upset with me but... She has... Files."

"Files?" His apprehension deepened.

"From her father."

The heavy feeling jumped into his throat, and Squall's anger was directed, if only for a moment, not at Noelle but at Seifer.

"And before you get mad, because I can see it in your face, she hasn't had them long. Seifer didn't give them to her directly, she... Found them. We're still trying to figure out where they came from, we think he had them... Before."

Squall winced. "I've got the majority of Odine's research memorized. What could Seifer have found that Odine didn't?"

"No idea. He had it buried deep though, whatever it was he didn't want anybody to know he had it."

"Noelle-"

"At least let me ask her for them. I don't have to tell her why, she probably won't ask any questions anyway, she's offered to let me look over them before but... Well, I always thought..." Noelle's voice dropped. "I just... I didn't see there being anything in his files I wouldn't be able to ask you and mom."

After a long pause, Squall reached over and took one of Noelle's hands. She kept her eyes trained down, her cheeks pink, but she gave his fingers a slight squeeze.

"I'm sorry," Squall said. Noelle's lips twitched, but when she did not speak, he continued. "I know... Noelle, you know I'm not good at this. But I'm sorry. _We're_ sorry. I know it doesn't help you, but we talk about you, worry about you daily. Your mother..."

"I know, dad." She finally looked up. "You won't betray her."

"I'm sorry."

She gripped his hand more tightly, and one side of her mouth finally quirked into a smile. "Don't apologize for showing me what I should expect. The good, and the bad."

Squall did not smile, but she met his eyes, and he at once felt certain that he had made the right decision.

"It's late," he said, and, giving her hand a final squeeze, stood up and walked towards the suitcase. "Here." He tossed Rinoa's pajamas across the room at Noelle, and she walked into the bathroom. While she changed, Squall brought the extra blankets from of the closet and lay them out on the floor, pulled off his shoes and the jeans he'd thrown over his sweatpants, and knelt beside the bed and pushed back Rinoa's hair.

"You're going to be mad at me," he whispered, and tried as gently as he could to maneuver her under the covers. "But I think you'll forgive me. You've forgiven me for worse." He smiled down at her, and pressed a kiss against her temple. "I love you."

The bathroom door opened, and Squall stood up. "Take the bed. I've got this." He gestured at the blankets on the floor.

"Are you sure?"

"I've slept in far worse places." Squall and Noelle said together. She smirked at him and he shook his head. "Come on, the sun will be coming up soon," Squall walked towards the light to turn it out while Noelle climbed into bed. As he hit the light switch, he saw Noelle looking again at Rinoa, a look similar to the one she'd held earlier.

It stayed with him long after he lay down. It was a look rooted more in the stars than the here and now, and his stomach lurched with the sharp awareness of what his and Rinoa's choice actually meant, and how, even though his entire life-but the last thirty years in particular-had been utterly enmeshed in the succession, how he had lived with it, fought with it, sworn to protect it, and nearly given his life for it several times, he was here, on the outside.

For Squall, the succession was a part of Rinoa, and that was all he could see. He'd barely understood what a Sorceress was before he was willing to die for one, and in his mind, this had never been a problem. It was who she was. Saying Rinoa was a Sorceress, was the same as saying she had black hair, that she was a mother, that she worked in Timber's government. He understood that others feared the stigma, but had always remained resolutely, naively convinced, that nobody feared _her_.

Even after Esthar. Even after...

But seeing Noelle mirror something he had always accepted as normal...

It scared him.

* * *

_Well, this is now officially the longest story I have posted on ffnet now! Not that impressive on a grand scale I guess, but I'm slowly learning how to write more than one-shots. _

_Also, and this is really, really exciting to me, Ronin-ai drew art from this story, for the WiBi community on deviantArt, and it is absolutely gorgeous. It's from one of the flashback scenes in Chapter 4, with Squall and Rinoa sharing a moment together near the lighthouse. I am so, so honored she took the time to draw something from this. It's a truly beautiful work of art. Here's the link: art/Rising-Tide-345187747_


	8. Chapter 8

_._

_Early April, 10 years past_

_._

Rinoa felt her body fold out, chest, arms, legs, fingers, each piece of her joining together from a central point. She clenched her fists, wiggled her toes, and when she shook her head the purple smoke vanished, and she was at war.

It was morning here, and Esthar was on fire. She knew this of course, had seen it on the news, in her dreams, behind her waking eyes, but the smell of smoke and death, the heat from the flames...these things she had forgotten.

Her first war was over twenty years ago; and her last. Squall had seen to that, and for two decades, she kept her fighting limited to words, to meetings, to speeches. She wielded the press and the power to decide what history remembered, but it was he who went again and again to the battlefield.

She coughed, and her head spun, dizzy from the Aetherforming. It was quiet-too quiet. She strained for distant sounds of gunshots, of shouts, of anything, only to be met with silence, and a gentle hum sounding within her own ears. Not even the sound of the wind, or a calling bird greeted her.

_I could..._

Her fingers buzzed with the vibrations of the magic she'd used to bring herself here, stronger magic than she'd used since she brought herself out of time, only now she'd had more practice. And both times, she was driven by the same desperate fear.

_Where are you?_

Rinoa started walking. Beneath her feet the road shifted, each step turning the thin crystal layer that gave the roads their blue sheen to rock and shard. She paused, and bent down to take a closer look. Whatever had damaged the crystal was not new, and Rinoa thought now the humming she heard was not of her own creation, but a line of energy that spiderwebbed across the adamantine base.

She moved just in time.

The ground she stood on shattered, and she watched it fall, along with the path that should have crossed above her, down, down through the beams and supports until it exploded on the desert sands like pink and blue fireworks. Crouched low to regain her balance, Rinoa held a shaking hand towards the road, and had only to let her hand hover over the crystal before another crack shot through beneath her feet, towards the old shopping arcade. Unbidden, she felt the stretch of skin and cried out in pain as her wings erupted from her back, the force of them sending more of the crystal pebbles scattering to the sides, and flying into the "closed" signs that dotted the digital storefronts.

"A trap," Rinoa said out loud, and her voice was swallowed by the silence. She made to fold her wings behind her, and that was enough to cause the rest of the road to give way, until she was hovering above the eastern block of the city. Looking down at the slope of the desert as it rose towards the center of Esthar proper, now flying above the wreckage of the crude trap set by people who did not understand, could not understand what source magic truly meant, the reality of her decision crashed around her.

For three nights she'd had the same dream, and watched the same stories on the news; the rebels were winning. The combined armies of SeeD and Deling City were losing ground. They had captured Esthar's airstation early on, and it was their last stronghold; if that fell, the war would come to Galbadia.

In the three years Squall was gone, she had dreamed of him almost nightly. She sat with Noelle and they made up stories together of his heroics, because if Noelle could imagine her father was single-handedly winning the war, then he wasn't dying. If she remained unwaveringly convinced that he was the ultimate Good Guy, she could walk past the kids at school whose family had died fighting and feel confident it was only through her daddy's efforts their numbers were not greater.

Because Rinoa had seen him fight before, and knew how reckless he was with his own life, and she needed the stories as much as Noelle.

For three nights, she dreamed of him dying, and during the third night, she woke with a weight around her heart and the paralyzing understanding that now, her dream was coming true. That sometime in the night the airstation had fallen, and the only reason Squall was still alive, was so they could make a final barter. For her.

And it worked, because here she was. And now that she was here, she was afraid. Somewhere across the world, Noelle was awake in the pre-dawn hours, sitting in their living room in Centra and feigning interest in Irvine's card game and refusing to sleep, and she knew he wouldn't make her. Rinoa tried to block out the echoed shouts, the pleading, the begging her not to go, but the electric hum of the sensors only amplified it.

_"Dad's been gone too long, you can't leave me too. What will I do if both of you...die?"_

_"They'll be expectin' you, Rin. I ain't gonna try an' stop you, and I couldn't even if I did, but you better not walk out of this house unless you can look that little girl in the eye and promise her you'll be comin' back."_

_"Mom...Mommy... Please."_

"Please_."_ Noelle's small voice sounded from her own lips, and this time Rinoa heard it bounce back to her from the depths beneath the crystal streets. _Please_, _please_, _please, eeeeez, eeez..._

She waved her hand and the voice fell silent, and Rinoa concentrated on the city.

_Where _are_ you?_

Nowhere. He was nowhere.

But he was still _there,_ somewhere in her head. Rinoa closed her eyes and called another cloud of smoke, and felt herself dissolve. She reached out in this nothingness to feel him, to find him. She searched the city as an imprint, an imperfection in the ether; what was left of Esthar existed in patterns of magic only, a perfect map of fallen roadways and buildings, of bodies both living and dead, and finally that familiar resonance grew stronger.

She heard the sound of the explosions before her location settled, and Rinoa reformed, not slowly and gracefully as she had done before, but all at once, and to the sound of shouts.

_"It's her, it's her!"_

_"Call the captain! "_

_"Bring out the prisoner!"_

The air was thicker here than where she first had landed, and Rinoa pulled a series of protective spells around herself before her envelope of smoke was finished fading. In the heavy air, she found the magic exhausting, and as she fought her way into the sky, she felt something bounce off her chest and saw a dart falling dumbly to the ground. Red smoke mingled with black against the ground that explained the explosions, and explained the heaviness she felt, but still, she rose higher. She was above the new Capitol, built over the ruins of the Palace, looking down on endless ranks of men and women armed with guns and arrows. They were all aimed at her, their weapons coated, she knew, with the inhibitors that would strip her of all her magic and in their mind, end the war.

_Not today._

He was down there; this was something she knew for certain. From her position Rinoa noted the break in formation that only her current vantage revealed; on the northeast corner of the old courtyard, well behind the front lines, she saw the soldiers out of line around what must be a door, and finally, three figures moving slowly along the back; a prisoner and two guards.

She closed her wings around her and called another cloud of smoke, vanished within it and reformed once again on a roof where she could see the soldiers searching for her, just above the door the others guarded, and she focused on the prisoner. He was weak, muffled. Whatever they were shooting at her they had used on him, and it worked to their advantage; she could feel him, but could not read his thoughts. Her breath, ever more labored from the air around her, hitched, and she struggled to keep herself present. If she moved, she could either save him, or she could get him and everyone else there killed. She felt almost drunk from repeated Aetherforming, and sparks shot from her hands against her will.

They did not take him to the guarded room. Instead, Rinoa watched them march him past it, and then turn and take him to the middle of the square. Her blood was hot, and her control was slipping.

At once, a voice boomed out:

"Behold, the famous Commander Leonhart. Both sides have lost countless numbers because of his refusal to surrender, but here he is, alive for the world to see. We have what we need from you, Commander. The Sorceress is here. Your purpose with us is complete. And now before the world, you will die.

"Fire."

Rinoa heard the word, and the world was a mass of black and purple smoke.

Her head throbbed with the pressure of something inside of her screaming its way to the outside, and she felt her skin burning, not as with flame, but with the power of a thousand generations, the purest expression of the very secrets of Hyne, hidden and protected within her until now. Rinoa did not see Esthar, she did not see the rebel leader who spoke, she did not even see Squall; what she saw was time, wholly compressed and stretched before her, and she was not on a battlefield, she _was _the battlefield. She was eternity, she was the missing half of Hyne, she was the beginning and the end of all things.

And then, she was herself.

Rinoa stood in the center of what had been the courtyard of the Presidential Palace, in a silence more complete, more profane than anything before. She was the epicenter of gutted earth that stretched out for over a mile on either side, and she was tiny, weak, and spent, wings hanging limp behind her. There were bodies, so many bodies; the rebel leader, the full guard that had aimed first at her, and then at Squall; bodies becoming shadows in the distance that were a mix of friend and foe, and there was Squall himself. She stood over him and he lay as though asleep, a faint green glow pulsing across his skin, one of his legs twisted and bleeding beneath him.

"Squall," she said, and the world was spinning around her. "Squall."

Rinoa dropped to her knees and pressed a trembling hand against his face, against his neck, the lingering pulse of magic still too strong in her feel anything else.

"Squall," her voice grew desperate, and she lay her head against his chest. He felt cold against the hot earth, against the whisper threatening to build again within her. "Please." Her wings, heavy with use, folded to the ground around them and she felt tears spilling out, and then she knew no more.

_._

The sun was up when Squall awoke, and by the angle he guessed it was a little before eight. In his makeshift bed on the floor, he stretched his back and limbs, and felt his entire body groan in protest.

_Well you deserve it,_ he told himself, and wondered if he lay there long enough if he could become part of the floor itself. In the past, the times Squall woke after a night of sleeping on a floor, he was in hiding, and was facing a day that would likely get him killed. Those days held nothing to the apprehension he felt today. Squall knew how to avoid detection, sense traps, and generally if he couldn't negotiate with his enemies he just killed them. He would have traded a firefight for having to face Rinoa after such a gross betrayal any day, and for a quarter of an hour at least, he wrestled with his guilt. Last night he had been so certain he was doing the right thing, and now, he hoped it was a dream.

_Noelle needed to know._ And she did. But she didn't need to hear it from him. Even if the circumstance would have made it almost impossible, he could have-_should_ have lied. It was Rinoa's decision. And it didn't matter that she was historically terrible at making decisions concerning her own health and safety, and it didn't matter how much he knew, on a conscious level, what he did was right. What mattered was that he betrayed her, and even if she forgave him for it, he shouldn't have done it.

The sun moved into the window and Squall shut his eyes against the bright morning light, and slowly stood up and looked immediately to the bed. Noelle was curled up, her face tucked almost into the comforter so that little was visible except her dark hair, splayed across the white linens like a stain. Rinoa lay much as she had the night before, and Squall could not tell if she was sleeping, or _sleeping. _

He did not try to find out.

He dressed quietly, tucked his wallet and a room key into his pocket, and slipped out of the room with only a brief glance at the bed as he closed the door behind him.

Downstairs, he ordered a cup of coffee and took it to a corner table, where he could see both the staircase and a large picture window looking onto the town. Winhill was busier this morning than they had seen the night before, and Squall passed the remainder of the hour watching its citizens walk up and down the street, their dress reminding him that it was Sunday.

"Refill, sir?"

He nodded to the man standing beside him, and pushed his mug towards the table's edge. The waiter filled the mug and passed it back to him and Squall mumbled his thanks, trying to place why the man was so familiar. He was probably a few years Squall's senior, but wore his age more heavily, in both face and weight. After a few minutes he finally remembered, his father had owned the sundries shop by the train station. In minutes, Squall's mind wandered into one of the alternate universes visiting his past often seemed to bring.

He was not a nostalgic person by nature. Rinoa often liked to fantasize about the different paths their lives could have taken, and he was content to listen, so long as he didn't have to participate. They had the lives they had. She teased him about lacking imagination. Squall felt like their lives were creative enough without helping it along, and said they would just be bored whenever she tried to counter with a scenario where they were clueless suburbanites whose biggest challenge was having a greener lawn than their neighbor.

Age had brought an appreciation for her game, however; one that increased the closer they got to the transfer, until it folded in on him the first time Rinoa disappeared.

_What if? _she always used to ask.

_What if?_

He imagined his mother never died, that he grew up here with a family. Would he have married the innkeeper's daughter instead, and it would now be him serving coffee to retired mercenaries?

Rinoa told him once when she brought it up, that he would have come to DC, or gone to G-Garden. That they would have met at something she had to attend because of her father, and they would have clashed because she was a city girl and he was a small town boy, and then they would have fallen in love. Most of her stories were like that, rooted in their own story of masking denial with harsh words and awkward flirtation until that was no longer an option.

They both knew better of course, understood the butterfly effect that had shaped their lives since before they were born. Rinoa found it fun. Over the last month, Squall found it necessary; though he wondered if it helped him cope, or if it was just a different way of torturing himself.

He jerked so strongly when he felt the flutter across his forehead that he spilled coffee over his hands, and swore as it burned.

"Sorry!" Rinoa set a matching mug on the table, and quickly traded his for a napkin. "Sorry," she repeated. "I thought you saw me coming."

Squall shook his head, and took the napkin to his mug, wiping the spill from the sides and around the bottom ring. "Obviously not."

"What were you thinking about?"

He watched her mix the smallest amount of milk into her coffee, noting that her eyes did not leave the table.

"I was playing 'what if.'"

Satisfied with her coffee, Rinoa brought the mug to her lips. "Imaging yourself as a Sunday service-going Winhill native?"

"Something like that."

She opened her mouth but closed it quickly, and cheated her chair so she could better see through the window. Squall found himself frustrated with her feigned cheerfulness, unsure if she was waiting for him to bring it up, or if this was her way of telling him she didn't want to talk about it. Maybe she was just trying to pretend nothing had happened.

"If we lived in that big mansion, when we were really old, maybe I could still be a witch."

Her words stung, and Squall scowled. "We could buy it," he said flatly.

"No ocean, remember?"

She glanced his way and her eyes finally caught his, and they were deep, far too deep for him to pretend to know what she was thinking-or at least, in what order. Instead he asked, "Is Noelle still sleeping?"

Rinoa nodded. "How long have you been down here?"

"Less than an hour."

"I thought I heard you leave."

"Sorry. I was trying to be quiet."

"It's okay."

Squall focused on his coffee, his frustration with this dance growing stronger. Rinoa turned her attention back to the window, and Squall took a breath.

"Last night-"

"Not now."

He quickly shut his mouth, and stood up without another word. He felt Rinoa watching him as he walked to the cafe counter. A few minutes later he carried a basket of breakfast breads to the table and placed them wordlessly between them.

"When, then?" he asked, after a long period of silence. "Once Noelle wakes up and joins us? After she leaves?"

"I just..."

"At least let me say I'm sorry."

Rinoa picked absently at a scone, and Squall watched as the dry pieces flaked off onto another napkin. She broke off a small piece and ate it, chasing it with her coffee. Finally she spoke, "How bad?"

"More than you'd be happy about."

"Anything is more than I'm happy about."

"You were together when you left. She got scared. Was I supposed to just lie to her?" _Yes. You were. _"She's smart, and she'd know I was lying anyway. She was already trying to parse what was wrong and why we haven't been calling at dinner."

Rinoa sighed.

"I told her... How long. And that we don't really know anything about it. And that's all I'll say for now if you don't want to talk about it." He thought about Seifer's files, and wondered how long he could wait before mentioning those without waiting too long. "And I'm sorry I suggested we come down here."

She shook her head. "Don't be."

He frowned, and stared into his mug.

"I was going to tell her anyway. That's why I wanted you to go upstairs. I just took a little too long to get to the point I guess, if you can believe that." She attempted a smile. "But you know, you didn't know she would be here and then she was. I couldn't really ignore timing like that."

"Guess you didn't have a choice."

"You're beating yourself up over it, aren't you?"

Squall finished the coffee in his mug, and waved to the waiter, who hurried over with a wide smile on his face.

"Here you go, sir. And you, ma'am. What do you think of the scones?"

"Great, thank you," Squall said, his voice lightly clipped. The waiter's smile did not waver, but he took the hint.

"You don't have to," Rinoa continued.

"To what?"

"Beat yourself up. I'm glad you talked to her."

Squall watched her mix another drop of milk into her coffee, and said nothing.

"So don't... Don't keep thinking you betrayed me or something, since I know that's how you feel."

"...I'll work on it," Squall finally said. Her tone was still too light, her dismissal too quick. But in her eyes this time he saw something almost pleading, and consented to drop the subject. If denial was what she needed, he could at least, for now, give her that.

"When is the next train to Dollet?"

"An hour."

"Well, if Noelle takes that she won't have much time to stick around this morning and talk anyway."

Especially not, Squall thought, if we wait until the last minute to wake her up. He raised an eyebrow at Rinoa and she flushed, but her eyes kept their resolve. Noelle would go back to Dollet and they would stay their second night, and maybe by the time they left he could forgive himself, and she could admit he'd done something wrong.

Noelle, as it happened, had the same idea as Rinoa. They stayed downstairs as long as they felt responsibility could allow before going up to wake her, and found Noelle in the shower, the small bag she'd carried from Ellone's packed and by the door. She finished with just enough time to say good morning, insist that she didn't need them to walk her to the station, and promise, with the directness of her father, that she would be coming out to see them soon. Then she kissed each of them goodbye, and was gone.

Rinoa walked to the window and watched her walk down the street, and Squall started folding up the sheets on the bed. Tucked under Noelle's pillow, he found a sheet of hotel stationary with "Dad" written on the front in Noelle's hand. He frowned, and sat on the bed to read it.

_Dad,_

_Thank you for your honesty last night. I won't bring it up with you or mom (outside of this letter, that is) unless you start talking about it first, although I hope you do, because I know as time goes on I'm going to have questions, and I'm going to worry about you. For now, it's enough to know why you haven't been calling. I do want to see you soon-I miss the house. I'm probably going to try and talk Ivy into having the wedding out there, so whenever our engagement is formalized expect a visit under that pretense, if nothing else. _

_Also, just one last thing, I had another dream last night, this time about... Esthar. I remember it of course, what you guys told me when you came home, at least. I don't have much to say about it, just that it was really scary, and I'm glad you got out of there alive. I guess at 12 it's easier to think your parents are immortal, either that or mom just did a really good job of hiding how scared she must have been. Either way, it's a dream I can do without having again. So far, I've liked yours and mom's war stories a lot better when you got to choose the parts I heard._

_All my love to both of you,_

_-N_

"What's that?" The bed moved under Rinoa's added weight, and Squall paused over the letter, and then handed it to her. He watched Rinoa's brow furrow as she read, and when she finished, she folded the paper, her eyes staring at the floor.

"What?" Squall asked.

"...I dreamed about Esther last night, too," she said flatly.

"Was it-"

"Nothing new. Exactly the way it happened. And without Noelle as an observer this time." She saw Squall's confused look, and added, "Like on the plane."

"Right."

"So she dreamed it too." It was not a question.

"She told me last night... Your dream on the plane? She had the same one."

Rinoa didn't react, save to flip the paper over in her hands a few times.

"She said that's why she was still here."

"Did you tell her anything?"

"Just that you dreamed Edea's memories sometimes. I didn't tell her you had that dream at the same time, though."

"What does it mean?"

"...I don't know." And he didn't. Last night, Squall's best guess would have been that it was because they were nearer to each other than they had been since Noelle inherited the succession. He wasn't unconvinced of that, even with this second occurrence, and he told Rinoa so. She only bit her lip, and read the letter again.

After a moment she stood. "Come on," she said.

"Where?"

"You wanted to take a vacation. I don't want to spend the whole time stuck in this room talking about the same things we talk about at home. Let's go... Somewhere. The fields. The cemetery. A hike. I just... If we were going to come all the way up here, we should make it worth the trip."

Squall watched her move around the room; watched her pick up the sheets he'd used as a bed the night before and dump them unceremoniously into a chair, watched her sort through their suitcase, leaving more clothes spread across the bed than she took in her arms, and watched her change out of the thin t-shirt she'd worn downstairs into something more suited for the autumn air.

"Here," she tossed him a sweater and scarf, and disappeared for a moment into the bathroom. After catching himself staring at the door that closed behind her, Squall realized he was smiling, and pulled the sweater over his head and then walked across the room to tug on his boots.

He started playing _what if,_ because the endless hours without Rinoa's idle chatter to fill the silence often found him spiraling into reflection on what they had missed. Years of watching her tear her body apart while they tried to have a baby. Weeks, months, years when he was away on missions, away at war. When he left for Esthar, Noelle's bedroom was covered in pictures of cartoon moogles and racing chocobos. When he came back, she was asking for make-up, and had swapped the moogles for pictures of some band out of Dollet that he hadn't even heard of. They built their house at the beach, only for him to have to leave it; to leave Rinoa alone to care for it, to care for Noelle, to care for _everything._

She left him for...hours. Days, at the most. But she had endured a lifetime of him leaving her. Squall started playing _what if_ once he was on her side of their story, and she was not there to charm him, to amuse him, to take him away from the distance and war and magic that had always separated them from the rest of the world, and move them to a place where they were and always would be the clumsy teenagers who thought they were above the odds.

When Rinoa walked out of the bathroom and joined him at the closet, Squall pulled her against him, arms tight against her back, and he breathed her in. She hugged him, gently, and he tightened his grip when she started to loosen hers. Her arms wrapped more firmly around his waist, and for several minutes they stood that way, feeling each other breathe and grounded in touch.

When he let her go she leaned back to look at him, her face quirked to the side, her eyes bright with confusion, amusement, and above all, the look she'd carried through the years that clearly said, _whatever it is you need, I hope what I have is enough._

_It always is,_ he thought back to her, and leaned down to kiss her in response. _Always._


	9. Chapter 9

_._

_August, ten years past_

_._

The morning sun screamed in through the bedroom windows, and Rinoa pulled a white sheet over her head to block the demanding rays.

_Shouted,_ she thought, and smiled within her glowing cocoon. _Shouted, not screamed._ The sun was just very enthusiastic about it being morning, and wanted to share in its joy. Rinoa rolled over and ran her hand across Squall's empty pillow, and smiled. The first rays of run had made them pretty enthusiastic about it being morning as well, and afterwards, Squall went upstairs to make coffee, and Rinoa drifted back to sleep for a little longer. The room was brighter than their house in Timber had ever been, and she decided even she might become a morning person if this was how her days would always start.

Blinking, Rinoa rolled from the mattress to the floor and pulled on a thin pair of pants and one of Squall's t-shirts, cracked the door to Noelle's room and smiled at her heavy breathing, and then padded upstairs to the smell of coffee. She poured a mug for herself, walked through the empty living room, and joined Squall on the balcony.

"Morning." She leaned down to kiss him, and took a seat in the second chair.

"Good morning. You're up early."

"Well technically-"

"You're _out of bed_ early."

She grinned. "You missed the room glowing white."

Squall shrugged. "I watched the sun rise over the ocean."

"You win."

"I think we both do."

"We don't really need furniture, right? That's too much like work. We have these chairs and a place to sleep, I think that's all we need."

"And you used to make fun of my preference for minimalist decor." He smirked over the edge of his coffee cup, and Rinoa started to laugh, and watched dust in the air around them shine like glitter, until it grew thicker, and the sound of her laughter was slowly swallowed, the dust darkening, and her eyes widened.

"Squall?"

He tilted his head at her and his faze froze as purple smoke consumed him, and spread out across the house.

"Squall!" she shrieked, and jumped out of her chair, wading through the smoke to find him, but the smoke had taken everything. In the distance, the ocean was on fire, and she could hear the flapping of wings in the air all around her, and the sound of a man shouting.

She jerked awake, and Squall was face down on the bed yelling into his pillow. The room was grey with the light of early morning, and his muscles were tense, his fists tight and white-knuckled. Rinoa brushed a hand over his shoulder and immediately pulled it back when he flailed backwards in response.

"Squall," she said, firmly. He was still stuck, and the sound of wings beating filled the room and gave her chills. She watched him fight for only another moment before she threw her whole body over him, and pressed his arms against his body and held on while he tried to throw her off, all the while repeating his name. Finally, he loosed his fist and gripped her hand, and lay panting beneath her. She gave him several minutes, and then whispered, "Hey."

They lay like that until his breathing slowed, and he let go of her hand and shrugged her off. Rinoa rolled back to her side of the bed and watched him stand, and, walk without a word into the bathroom. A minute later she heard the shower running. She closed her eyes and watched echoes of purple smoke and listened to the sound of wings, and counted backwards from ten. When Squall finished his shower, he walked into the bedroom just long enough to dress. Rinoa lay in bed for several minutes longer, before heading into the shower for herself. She walked upstairs when she was finished and the room was empty. A coffee cup lay empty in the sink, the pot still mostly full. She frowned, poured a cup, and took a seat on the couch. In time, she heard a saw running outside, and let out a heavy sigh.

She turned at the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and smiled at Noelle, her hair tangled, her nightshirt a ridiculous old t-shirt with a moomba on the front Laguna had once given Squall as a gag gift.

"He's up early," Noelle mumbled, and joined Rinoa on the couch.

"So are you," Rinoa said. She set her coffee on the table, and Noelle climbed into her lap. "Did he wake you?"

"A little." Noelle yawned, and rested her head on her mother's shoulder. "Can I have coffee this morning?"

"No ma'am."

"Fiiiine."

Rinoa pushed Noelle's hair back absently. "This saves me the trouble of having to wake you up at least."

"Moommmm, I can wake myself up."

"Not this early. You were grumbling about it last night."

"Yeah, and I'll grumble to dad about taking away that extra half hour I could have had. Who does home improvement at the crack of dawn?"

"I'd grumble to him when you get home. He's busy."

Noelle had no response, and Rinoa stared over her head out the windows. The sky was marked with thick clouds, and it gave the appearance of orange blazes where the sunrise caught their outlines.

"Come on," Rinoa nudged Noelle after awhile. "You need to get dressed."

"Remind me again why I thought band would be a good idea?"

"Apparently the part where you get to make music.'"

"Even though my summer has to end early?"

"Even though. But since you did think it was a good idea, you should get dressed and eat something before they get here."

Noelle mumbled a few incoherent things under her breath but disappeared downstairs, and Rinoa got up to pour a fresh cup of coffee. Ten minutes later Noelle reappeared dressed and with her hair brushed and in a ponytail, and Rinoa handed her a plate containing cinnamon toast, cheese, and a sliced apple.

"Cinnamon toast? You're spoiling me," Noelle grinned, and tore into one of the pieces while standing in the kitchen.

"See what happens when you don't oversleep?" She handed Noelle a glass of juice, and watched her take her breakfast outside, where she ate it looking over to the side of the house where Squall was working.

_Not spoiling,_ Rinoa thought. _Just trying to make things more cheerful._ She stood in the kitchen while she finished her coffee, and when Noelle came back inside she took her dirty plate, kissed her on the cheek, and watched her through the kitchen window as she waited for her carpool, instrument case waiting at her feet.

Noelle waved at her from the driveway as she left, and Rinoa let the quiet of the house settle in around her. She considered just going back to sleep, but instead filled her mug one more time and walked outside, and stood for several minutes at the side of the house and watched Squall, bent over a worktable, with safety glasses perched on his head. Finally he looked up, and they stared at each other.

"Everything okay?" he finally asked, and she took it as an invitation to walk closer. She handed him the coffee, and he took a slow sip.

"We have a new alarm clock for Noelle," she said, hesitant, and pointed at the table saw when he looked confused. He eyes darkened for just a second and Rinoa sighed. "Sorry."

"Did she leave already?"

Rinoa nodded.

"I meant to tell her good luck."

"She knows."

Squall held the coffee mug near his lips, and leaned against the table. "Does she?"

"She thinks you're nuts for getting up this early."

"She's never been a morning person."

"No, she hasn't."

"But it was still her idea to do this."

Rinoa bit her lip, and thought about how to proceed. "Yes." She settled on simplicity.

"Well, I can't blame her for wanting to get out of the house."

"Squall..."

He flexed his healing leg, and Rinoa pretended not to notice. The clouds were growing thicker, and most of the morning colors were gone. The late summer humidity was already making her hair cling to the back of her neck, and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

"Thanks for the coffee." He handed the mug back to her with a tone of finality, and Rinoa felt her eyes start to burn.

"Will you... At least come in and eat something?"

"Rinoa-"

"Please? I don't want to come out here and find you almost passed out again."

She saw his jaw lock, but he moved past her anyway, and she walked a few steps behind him.

"Cinnamon?" He paused at the door.

"For Noelle."

Another dark thing crossed his face. "Since when does she get dessert for breakfast?"

"Since I wanted to make something nice for her this morning. And it's not dessert, and she had fruit and cheese with it."

"Is she drinking coffee yet?"

"No she isn't, and you know that she isn't."

Squall took the stairs slowly, and flexed his leg again when he reached the top. Rinoa fought the urge to ask him about it, and sat at the breakfast bar and looked into the rest of the living room while he worked on finding something to eat.

She thought of a lot of things to say-to ask him about the clubhouse he was building for Noelle, about his dream. She considered talking about the weather just for something to break the silence, but held her tongue. Once Squall finished cooking, he walked past her and sat down on the couch, and turned on the morning news; Rinoa knew he wasn't really watching it.

"How long is her practice?" he finally asked.

"It should be over around lunchtime. We cou-"

"Does she have a ride home?"

"Same people who picked her up this morning. We have carpool duty on Thursdays."

"I want to pick her up today."

"...Okay."

Rinoa stood up, and started washing the few dishes Squall had dirtied, and was almost surprised at the long-dormant sense of fight that called out for her attention.

She held onto the hand towel for several minutes, looking at the clean kitchen, looking at Squall sitting on the couch with his empty plate, and slammed her fists against the counter. He shot off the couch and spun around, something wild and angry in his eyes.

"What the _fuck,_ Rinoa?"

"I'm sick of this, that's what!" she said, and crossed her arms in front of her.

"Of me eating breakfast?"

"Of you not _talking_ to me! What the hell was the point of convincing me to stay if you were only going to shut me out a few months later?"

"I'm not shutting you out-"

"Yes you are! You have these dreams that I see and I don't even bother trying to ask you about those anymore. You won't do anything with Noelle unless it's just the two of you, and lately you hardly even look at me. If that's not shutting me out then please, tell me what it is."

"Right, because this is all about you."

"As opposed to it being all about _you?_"

Squall glared at her, and she saw his eyes dart towards the door.

"No. You aren't running out on this."

"A running joke. Very mature."

"Don't talk to me about maturity."

"This, coming from this person whose solution was complete abandonment."

"How is that any different than what you're doing?"

"I'm still here, aren't I?"

"In the loosest definition of the word."

"So you'd rather I just leave?"

Rinoa clenched her fists and took a breath. _Yes, because that's exactly what I said,_ she thought, but said, "No, and you know that."

"Then what?"

"Be a part of the damn family, Squall."

He winced and for a second Rinoa thought she may have crossed a line, but then he sat down and his hand twitched towards his leg. _Well, at least you're stuck up here with me for a few more minutes._

"How?" he asked. "By smiling and forcing people to eat all the time?"

"Well, that would be a start."

"Fine. At least that's something that hasn't changed."

"What, smiling? Because-"

"No, Rinoa. _Eating._ Even though I don't know where to begin with that, because Noelle's tastes have gotten so-"

"Older? _She's_ older, Squall. You can't be angry at me for the fact that she's not eating off of a children's menu anymore."

"Fine. Older."

"Is all of this really just about Noelle?"

"What?"

"You. You were fine until school ended, and ever since you've just been more and more withdrawn, and I know it was horrible, and I know...time can make things worse. But the timing...is that it? Because now that she's not in school you're just around to see more of... Well, more of how she's changed?"

Squall didn't answer, and Rinoa walked slowly into the living room, and sat opposite him on the couch.

"Why won't you-"

"It _is_ summer. But only because all I can think about is that last summer there was somebody else here doing the things that I should have been doing."

Rinoa stopped, her mouth still open, and felt herself flush. "What?"

"She starts talking about all these things that Irvine took her to do, and what I see is a family. I spent last summer watching one of my best friends die while he stayed here raising my daughter and doing lord know what with my wife, and somehow I'm supposed to just fall right back into this place that he carved out."

His tone was defeated, but all Rinoa heard was the challenge, and felt her blood turn hot.

"How long have you been holding onto that?" Her eyes narrowed, and her voice was like ice.

He raised his eyes, and she was pleased to see her tone had affected him.

"Since you got back? Since before you got back? Or is this just something that started recently?"

"Rinoa-"

"No, Squall. If you have something to ask me, ask it. If that's what it takes for you to get this out of your head."

"I'm sorry I said that."

"Are you?"

"Sorry I said it...like that." His voice grew stronger. "But as long as we're talking about it, fine. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn't at least think about it."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I did think about it."

He drew back, surprised, she thought, at her honesty, and she continued while she had the breath to do so. "_Thought _about it. And there was a moment when I really thought I might even go through with it."

"And you kept it a secret." His voice was tight.

"It wasn't a secret. He left, and I forgot all about it, and then you came home. The last months you were gone my mind was over there with you so much of the time anyway I didn't have time to think about anything else. And if you'd asked me about that from the beginning, instead of pulling away and dwelling on it and resenting me over something that never happened, maybe we wouldn't be where we are right now."

"The way Noelle talks, though. It's like last summer is the only part of the time I was gone she cares about."

"It's the only time she had _fun,_ Squall."

"Thanks. Twist the knife a little more."

"It's the only time she had _fun,_ because it's the only time she had an adult around who actually focused on _her._ That was why we asked him to come down here, wasn't it? An idea that was yours to begin with, I might add."

He nodded.

"I tried, but do you know how hard it is to pretend like everything's okay with daddy when almost every night you have dreams to the contrary? He took her places. He charmed her friends, and played silly games, and yes, Squall, he helped me too, because having someone around gave me something to think about when I wasn't at work, and I could fall into a pattern. But he's not you. And if I could have willed him into you I would have, but he's not. And you can't get angry with me for having a moment of weakness when I spent _years_ fighting anything remotely weak, and just taking everything a day at a time. And I know it doesn't compare, because you never had time to rest or think about anything other than staying alive, and you had to watch Zell die, and you missed those years of your life, but it wasn't easy for me either. I was frozen here waiting for you, and I only had so much to distract me from the fact that your side of the bed was always cold, and there was a chance it always would be."

"But you didn't..."

"No. We didn't."

Her words hung in the air for a long time.

"...I'm glad he helped Noelle."

"We'll see if you're still saying that after years of listening to her playing saxophone in the house."

"Irvine has a lot of far worse habits he could have given her."

"Was that a joke?"

His lips twitched, and he said, "It might have been."

She smiled. "Well I guess that's something."

"I guess I just... Wouldn't have blamed you."

"For sleeping with someone else? Squall, you could have completely blamed me for that."

His face drew up, and she reached forward and gave his leg a hesitant touch. "You can stop picturing it, too."

"Not the first time."

"And for something you say you wouldn't have blamed me for, it's apparently consumed you this summer. Unless there's something else."

"There's just..." He brought a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. "I don't know what you want from me. You hover, and I don't know what it is you're expecting of me."

"I want you to talk to me."

"What's there to talk about, Rinoa? You of all people should understand. I thought... I never thought I would have to ask you to understand this."

"What? The dreams? The feeling of being completely isolated from everybody around you? That your friends and family, that strangers are always on the other side of this line that you're never going to be able to cross? Oh yeah, I understand that."

"Then... What?"

She pulled her hand back, and drew her knees into her chest. "You know what."

"Don't... Don't play that game."

"You. That's...that's what. Because I didn't try to shut you out."

"I don't want to burden you."

Rinoa stared at him, and laughed in spite of herself. "Burden me? Squall, you...how are you still so clueless sometimes?"

He looked so offended Rinoa started laughing even harder.

"Squall... I dream your dreams with you. I sit around all day long waiting for you to talk, or explode, or walk out. And speaking of things we should understand about each other, how many times have I said those exact words to you, only to have you tell me what an idiot I'm being?"

"Not in _those_ exact words."

"Well those are the exact words I am going to use on you. You're being an idiot, if you honestly think what you're doing is somehow protecting me. And from someone who does know all too well what it feels like to have something dangerous threatening to burst out of you at any time, hiding it from everyone only makes it worse. You've seen my darkness, you're not going to scare me away with yours. Plus, if _you_ explode, you don't have to worry about hurting anyone but me, and I can take it. Unlike you." She pointed at his leg, and he raised an eyebrow.

"A joke?"

"It might have been."

Outside the wind chimes let out a loud burst of song, and they watched the clouds moving past, the occasional sunbeam sneaking down before running off to hide again.

"What did you want to do with Noelle?"

Squall shrugged. "I just thought I'd take her out for lunch, ask her about practice."

"Well you've got a few hours if you want to get back to work, if you can get anything done in this wind."

He nodded. "Do you want to go too?"

"To help you work?"

"Out to lunch. We learned our lesson about you and construction."

"Oh. In that case, yes." She smiled, and didn't bother to point out that she'd had three years of practice since the last time she helped him with a project.

"Okay."

"...Okay."

"I'll... Try to talk more."

"It always worked the best when you would just hold me, you know. All the times I woke up with nightmares..."

He stared at her, and she held his gaze.

"You can't scare me away, Squall. I promise."

"Is that a challenge?"

"Sure."

"Then I guess we'll find out."

Now he did smile, and she slid across the couch and wrapped her arms around him. "I guess we will."

_._

_August, eleven years past_

_._

The house was dark when Rinoa turned the corner onto their street, and she frowned, pulling into the driveway beside Irvine's truck. She knew she was late getting home, but she didn't think she was _that_ late. The clock in her car was reading just past 11, and surely they would still be awake. She climbed the steps to the side door and opened it quietly, and heard music drifting in from upstairs. All the lights were out downstairs, and she took a quick detour to poke her head into Noelle's room. Dark hair stuck out from the blankets, and Rinoa listened for a few minutes to hear the sounds of deep breathing. She wanted to walk over to the bed, to kiss her forehead and tell her goodnight, but Noelle had so much trouble getting to sleep anymore that Rinoa was afraid disturb her.

She closed the door and walked up the stairs into an empty living room. The only light came from over the stove, invisible from the road, but enough to show her that the dishes were done, and there was no visible sign anyone had been there all night. Her frown deepened, and she stepped out onto the balcony, and finally heard evidence of another person in the sound of the jacuzzi jets on the lower deck.

"Hey," she said and leaned over the railing, looking down to where Irvine sat in the hot tub alone. He looked up at her, moonlight reflected on his face.

"You finally made it out."

"Long day. Want anything to drink?"

Irvine reached for a bottle perched on the side of the jacuzzi, and Rinoa went inside and pulled something identical out of the fridge, walked down the indoor steps, and out onto the lower deck. She climbed onto the edge of the jacuzzi, carefully folding her skirt so it fell to the side, and Irvine raised his bottle and they clinked theirs together.

"So... You're alone," Rinoa noted.

Irvine shrugged, and raised the bottle to his lips. "She called."

"Flight delays?"

"New boyfriend."

"Ahh."

Rinoa let her fingers fall into the hot water, and moved them in a circle.

"Good for her, I say."

"Do you?"

Irvine leaned back and closed his eyes. "I don't know."

Rinoa mirrored him, leaning against the pillar beside the jacuzzi, and they sat in the cooling air, listening to the sound of the jets and the music drifting in gently from the open windows upstairs.

"I s'pose I ought to decide what to do with her at some point. I just don't think tellin' her would change anything. Or it would, just not the way I'd like for things to change."

"Yeah, but you can't keep going the way things are right now."

"That makes two of us, don't it?"

Rinoa dropped her hand back into the water, and kicked droplets around with her fingers. "You can't compare them, Irvine. Squall didn't choose to leave. And it's not like anything's really _different_ with you and Selphie. At least, not as far as she's concerned."

"I wasn't comparin' them. But you can't tell me you like having me around all the time like this."

"It's just another week. Once school starts, Noelle will be fine in the evenings by herself and you can go home."

"Until you go back to workin' 'til nearly midnight every day."

"That's going to be over soon."

"So you say."

"Well it's either that, or lose the whole country."

"Weren't you done with all this stuff after Timber?"

Rinoa sighed, and took another drink. _In theory,_ she thought. But despite her promises to herself that she was done with politics, if the choice was to sit on the sidelines and watch a place that held so much significance for them fall into ruin before it really got started, even before Squall left for Esthar Rinoa found herself climbing up the Capitol steps of New Lenown. But she'd be lying if she said she wasn't still there just to keep her mind away from Esthar.

"Are you telling me you haven't liked getting to spend your summer at the beach? Because you sure could have fooled me."

Irvine flexed out an arm so covered in freckles they were visible even in the moonlight. "Want to see my tanline?"

"I've seen it, thanks."

Irvine winked, and they laughed. He'd been there since summer started, and there had been more than a couple of embarrassing moments as each of them adjusted to living with someone new.

"You could get in, you know."

"I'm still in my work clothes. And I'm tired. I don't really feel like changing into something more appropriate."

"So, get in in your work clothes. It's not like you've got on anything fancy." He flicked water in her direction, and she watched the dark spots pool out on the cotton of her skirt. "See? Now you've got nothin' to lose."

"You're lucky I was there mostly after hours today and could afford to be more casual."

"You mean _you're _lucky. Get in." He sent another splash in her direction, and she let out a laugh far louder than she meant to, and she pulled her outer shirt off and slid into the water. Her skirt was immediately heavy, and in the jets it moved around her legs like seaweed.

"You got me, you know. I am gonna miss stayin' out here."

"Just because I won't _need_ you down here anymore doesn't mean you have to leave if you don't want to. I know it wasn't the original reason, but it has been nice, having company."

Irvine took a few minutes to respond. Tonight was cooler than they'd seen in awhile, and Rinoa filled the silence by closing her eyes and letting the breeze hit her face.

"I can't say I haven't thought about askin'."

"But no?"

She cracked open an eye, and saw him shake his head. "I been away from home long enough. 'Sides, people will start to talk, if they haven't already..." He paused. "They're not, are they?"

"Talking?"

"Yeah."

Rinoa let a hand slide back and forth across the water. "Probably. I learned how to tune all of that out years ago." But that wasn't entirely true. Maybe people weren't saying anything to to her, but she had a feeling when school started back Noelle would hear a lot of things parroted from her classmates' parents that they wouldn't dare say to Rinoa's face.

But then, the people here were essentially strangers. Maybe she and Squall had arrived in a windstorm of change and success, but they had been given little time to make friends, to get to know anyone on a personal level, before he had to leave. Had it been another family, Rinoa would have raised an eyebrow too when another man showed up and started living in the house of someone that long at war.

"You guys just can't get enough of the spotlight, can you?"

"Oh yeah, we just love it." Rinoa rolled her eyes, and reached for her beer.

"Everyone else's managed to fade into obscurity, 'cept the two of you."

"That's not why we moved, and you know it. Kind of the opposite, really. Anyway, with his job... People are always going to watch us. Even Squall agrees it's sometimes better to give them something to look at than to let them pry, but don't tell him I told you that. And anyway, you can't say everyone's faded into obscurity. We have no idea where Quistis even is, much less what she's up to."

"I think you mighta missed the definition of obscurity, Rin. She did it better'n any of us."

"Or she's dead," Rinoa said, matter-of-fact.

"Or she's dead."

Somewhere behind them was the sound of a plane taking off. Probably the same plane that should have brought Selphie to Centra, and it brought a shift in mood that Rinoa felt was neither better nor worse.

"Want another?" Irvine waved his empty bottle, and Rinoa nodded.

"You better be wearing something under this water, Kinneas," she teased, and watched him lean forward.

"Now, where's the fun in that?"

"Somewhere in the fact that I've got an eleven year old in there who doesn't need to be quite that educated yet."

"Always rainin' on my parade." Irvine grinned as he stood up, and Rinoa could _feel_ him check the urge to moon her.

"You couldn't stay down here any longer even if you wanted to. I think you're going a little crazy without people around to admire you."

"You don't admire me?"

"Just try not to drip water across the living room, okay?"

Irvine made sure to splash her on his way out of the jacuzzi, but grabbed a towel, and Rinoa heard him taking time to make sure his feet were dry on the deck above. In the passing solitude, she stared out over the ocean, at the stars bright enough to fight their way over the glowing moon, and the sweeping beam of the lighthouse pulsing away in the west.

She started when Irvine swung a leg back into the water, and he paused before handing her a bottle. They clinked them together again, and she continued to watch the horizon, and it was a long time before either of them spoke.

"I don't want to leave you alone."

Rinoa took a long pull in response, and tried to make out the song playing above. Finally, "I've been alone for over two years."

"Yeah, and look at you."

"What about me?" She turned to face him. He was leaning into the corner, casual as ever.

"You ain't happy, that's for sure."

"And you being here is going to change that?" she spat, and only felt so guilty about it.

Irvine didn't flinch. "I'm not sayin' it is."

"So why did you say what you did?"

"Just..."

"I just celebrated Squall's birthday with a five minute phone call for the third year in a row. Our daughter has seen her father once since he left. This was supposed to be... This was our dream house. We came up with this idea on a whim and we _did_ _it_, and..." She sighed, and gestured at the water. "You know why I never come out here by myself? We bought this jacuzzi two months before he left and hardly got to use it, because he spent those two months in Balamb trying everything he could to keep himself out of the front lines. And none of it worked. And you... So I'm working a lot. But I'm also raising a preteen by myself and trying to make decisions on a house I should be making with my best friend, and looking for anything I can find that will keep me from wondering when I'm going to get a phone call letting me know... That he..."

"You need friends, Rinoa." Irvine stared at her and she turned away, his gaze strong in the dark.

"I need my husband." She reached for her beer, but the knot in her throat was too tight to take a drink. " Dammit," she choked out. "Now I'm going to cry."

"Would it be callous of me to say 'what else is new?'"

"A little, yes." She sniffled, and couldn't manage a smile.

"You need your friends," he repeated. "And I don't have anything better to do with my time these days."

"You need to talk to Selphie."

"You're redirecting."

"And you're using my really shitty situation to avoid moving forward with your life."

Irvine set his bottle down on the side of the jacuzzi with enough force that Rinoa felt the vibrations in the wall over the movement of the jets. "Dammit, that's the second time you've insulted me to get out of talking about this."

"Well then take the hint."

"Just because Squall ain't here doesn't mean you've gotta start acting like him."

"Irvine-"

"No. You want to start tradin' insults? I could start talkin' about the fact that I probably know more about your kid's interests than either of her parents right now, seein' as I'm the only parent she's had since school let out. And I mean no offense to you and Squall because you've got a great kid, but I don't, and there's a reason for that. You asked me to come down for the summer so she wouldn't be alone all day while you were workin' so much overtime, and I'm half raisin' her. So don't talk to me about avoiding movin' forward with anything."

"You..." Rinoa took a deep breath. The effort of holding back her tears was becoming painful, and she could feel her anger starting to light up within her. She took another breath, and without a word slipped down so she was completely submerged. Her throat contracted and she let out something almost like a bark under the water, and when she came up she was coughing and sobbing and only wanted to get away. "I'm done," she said, her voice tight and quiet.

"Rinoa..."

"No. I can't... I can't. I'm... I'm sorry, but I can't." She stood up, and the weight of her skirt caught her as she pulled her leg towards the wall and knocked her off balance. She fell back into the water and felt her head hit the opposite side of the jacuzzi just as Irvine caught her and pulled her up, sputtering and crying, her legs still tangled in her skirt.

"Well you don't have to hurt yourself just to make me feel bad for crossing a line," he said, and at least had the grace not to laugh. "Are you okay?"

She shook her head and leaned into him, and he wrapped his arms around her. "No," she said. "I'm not."

"...I know you're not."

And he held her, and she cried, and Rinoa closed her eyes and willed the moment to be different. Because the feeling of skin on skin was the closest to something soothing she had found since Squall left, and maybe if she could just pretend hard enough, it would be _him_, and they would be together. She pulled herself into his lap and slid one of her arms around Irvine's side; ran her fingers up his back, and if she kept her eyes closed tightly enough she could almost find him.

"Ri-"

"Shut up."

"Rinoa."

"Please. Just don't say anything." The water pressed against her chest and she leaned her head onto Irvine's shoulder, aching for the curve of his neck but Irvine was so much taller and it was just _wrong, _and she cried harder, and Irvine said nothing. He ran his fingers over her shoulder, pulled strands of wet hair across her skin exactly the way that Squall did, and let his cheek rest against the side of her head.

"Rin," he finally whispered, and she wondered how much time had passed. She was dizzy from the heat, and could feel the wrinkles on her skin.

"I know," she replied. "I'm..."

"It's okay."

"I guess...we should..."

"Yeah. But you may want to take your skirt off this time."

"What?" She looked up sharply and her nose bumped into his chin, and their faces were close enough to feel the heat from each other's breath.

"So you don't, you know, trip again." She felt every word as he said it, his lips almost brushing her forehead.

"Right..." One of his arms had moved down around her waist, and she wasn't ready to let go.

But his chin was sharper, his nose longer, and she blinked and bowed her head, and Irvine kissed her forehead, and helped her to her feet. "Come on. I'll go first."

He did. She pulled her skirt off under the water, allowed Irvine to help her back onto the deck, and wrung out the skirt while he collected their bottles, and flipped over the cover and shut off the jets. They walked towards the doors together and stood in silence, the door to hers and Squall's bedroom behind her, the door to the guest room behind him. In the breeze, she was sharply aware of how little she wore, and how close he was standing.

She opened her mouth to say-What? Thank you? Another apology? Goodnight?-but Irvine spoke first.

"You know, we could always..."

"Irvine..."

"I'm just sayin', you know. Just...lay together. Share space. We could do that. Be beside each other without bein' _with_ each other. Nothin' else. Maybe...maybe it's the thing we both need."

She shivered, less at the wind and more at the memory of his arms wrapped around her, of bodies pressed together, and how much she wanted what he was suggesting. But...

"He's... He's at war_,_ Irvine. He's not... He's at _war._ I know... I want..." She felt the tears coming back, and Irvine raised a hand to her face and brushed one away.

"Just an idea," he said. "No offense taken."

"I just miss him so much. There's this constant pain that's been there since he left, and... There's no amount of distraction or pretending that's ever going to make it go away. It will be there, until he's home. I'm doing the best I can."

"I know. And I'm sorry."

"...Me too."

"Goodnight?"

She nodded, and stepped forward. "Goodnight." She gave him a brief hug, and, once in her room, changed quickly out of her wet clothes and collapsed on the bed, hair soaking her pillow. After a few minutes she heard the shower in the hall cut on, and she hugged herself, trying to hold onto the memory of arms around her and fingers grazing her skin until she finally cried herself to sleep.


	10. Chapter 10

"I give up." Rinoa was laying on the couch when Squall got home, three books on the floor, and a wine glass on the table beside her.

"I gathered from the text messages you sent." Squall walked into the kitchen and pulled his wallet, keys, and phone out of his pocket, poured himself a glass from the half-empty bottle, and walked back into the living room to join her. Rinoa pulled her legs towards herself on the couch and gave him room to sit.

"I just don't know what else I can do."

"With..."

"Edea!"

"Mmm." Squall took a sip of wine, and Rinoa reached for her glass.

"I tried calling her again."

"No luck?"

"Cid answered. He said she was too busy to come to the phone. As usual. So I asked if they would like to come visit soon, and he said no, as usual, so I asked if they wanted us to come down there-"

"I see where this is going."

"Then I asked them if they could be here for Noelle's birthday party. She'll be a year old next month, and they still haven't met her."

"I know."

Rinoa sat up, took another sip, and gestured widely with her glass. "We can't keep the others away, whether we want to or not. _My father_ won't leave us alone for crying out loud! I mean, it figures that motherhood is the one thing I do that finally makes him proud, but good grief, if a man I've barely spoken with since I was a kid can make time to see his granddaughter, you'd think the people who raised you could figure it out. Or at the very least, let us go down and visit them if they don't want to travel!"

"I know-"

"Not that it even does us any good when we do go down there though, you know? Cid just wants to tell stories and Edea... I just don't know what to do, Squall. It's been over ten years, and I just... I thought at first she didn't want to talk to me because it was hard, or maybe even because she felt bad, and then maybe I thought it was because she didn't want to talk about having children since they never did and she didn't want to be the one to tell me I couldn't, and then maybe because we did, but it's just... It's like there is this endless line of excuses, and I-" Rinoa took a breath, forcing back the knot forming in her throat, and her voice was quieter when she continued. "I don't… I don't have a mother I can go to for advice. I just thought... She won't help me with this _gift_, maybe she can at least help me with the baby. Just... How long does this have to last?" She stared at her glass, and felt Squall lean closer, watching her.

"…"

"And then," Rinoa started again, and Squall fell back against the couch, "Then, there's the fact that when we do go down there, she sometimes won't even see us. Or she'll finally join us at the end, or only at the beginning. I just... Is she okay? Has Cid said anything to you?"

"You know we don't talk unless it's work related."

"Well, maybe you should try."

"Rinoa-"

"I know, I know. But I just really... I don't know if I have it in me to keep trying like this."

Squall said nothing, and let a hand rest against her knees.

"Say something comforting."

"Cid's retiring soon."

Rinoa's eyes grew wide and she just stared for a second. "Squall!"

"I just found out today."

"I just asked if he had said anything to you!"

"Well not about Edea, no."

"That still counts!" Rinoa shook her head, torn between annoyance and amusement.

"He didn't say why, but we figured it was coming soon."

"Are they going to offer you his job?"

"They already did."

"You said no?"

Squall nodded, and Rinoa stared at him, her mind racing.

"It's administrative. He runs the school, Rin, that's it. That's how we wanted it. I'm not going to give up a position that makes it my business to know what the world is saying about you in favor of hiring instructors and dealing with Garden's finances."

"No, I get that... But if he's retiring... What if there _is_ something wrong with Edea?"

"Then they'll tell us if they want to."

Rinoa hugged her knees to her chest, and stared into her empty glass. "What if they never want to?"

"Rinoa... Do we tell everyone else our problems?"

"Ours are-"

"Not that. Us. Our...the miscarriages. You didn't tell anyone about those. You didn't even want to see Kadowaki because you didn't want anyone we knew to know."

"They were private. And painful."

"Exactly."

Rinoa glared at him, and then stuck out her tongue. "Meanie."

"It's frustrating to me as well that they won't talk to us, but it's their choice. We might not know the full story, and it's not our place to pry."

Rinoa sighed, and after a few minutes, they heard the sounds of Noelle waking up through the monitor.

"I'll go," Squall said, and gestured for Rinoa to stay seated.

She watched him walk out of the room, and thought about Cid's retirement, and whether there was something else to it or not.

_You're being ridiculous,_ she told herself. He was certainly old enough, and had earned time to spend with his wife. But was that everything? Trying to talk to them and being shut out wasn't new, after all. For as long as Rinoa had known them, the most open she'd ever found Cid was the night she approached him in an inappropriately short skirt with a wild-shot request for a contract. And Edea…

Rinoa often thought of the first time she met her-met _her,_ when neither of them were possessed, and neither of them were unconscious-but especially so in the last year. In that brief exchange, Rinoa felt the gravity of what they had exchanged, and accepted her as _mother._ They had discussed it-sort of-in the years that followed, the power of the succession. The chain that connected them through the ages, that threatened at any moment to overwhelm, that _would_ overwhelm without the grounding influence only another could provide. But it was there on the beach, under the threatening storm and amidst the crushing, exposed terror she'd awoken to, that Edea was her mother, her creator. Squall had saved her, brought her back fromthe void of space (from _death), _and he was her tether, but Edea was the bold black line that gave a horizon to an otherwise empty white space.

Was. Or at least, she should have been.

But then, Squall was right. If something was wrong, they deserved to deal with it in privacy.

She heard Noelle's murmurs grow louder on the stairs, punctuated by Squall's heavy footfalls, and she set down her glass and watched them.

"Everything good?"

Squall nodded. Noelle pressed a hand against his chin and towards his mouth, and he kissed her fingers, and stood, swaying slightly, and looked to Rinoa.

"You're right," she said, and smiled when Noelle managed to get a grip around Squall's necklace. _Just go with it,_ she thought. It had worked so far. Had worked for Squall, who trusted Rinoa and her instincts implicitly, and reassured her daily they were doing fine.

Squall pried Noelle's fingers from his necklace and when she started to fuss he lowered her to the floor, balanced on shaky legs, so she was facing Rinoa. A smile broke across her face and she took several slow, staggered steps towards the couch where Rinoa scooped her up and blew a raspberry into her neck. Noelle squealed, and she repeated the motion.

Noelle had two parents. Which was more than Squall had ever had, more than she'd had past a certain age, and they did not need Edea's help or anybody else to make their daughter laugh, or to be able to laugh with her, or to show her every day that she was safe and loved.

"And really," Rinoa leaned down and whispered against Noelle's forehead to a response of tiny giggles. "That's all that matters."

._.

The ride home from the airport Monday night was quiet, and Squall kept his jaw locked and his eyes on the road for most of it, fighting back the lingering nausea from the landing. He had slept-actually slept-for most of the flight, Rinoa graciously waiting until they were taxiing in to wake him, but he had also dreamed, and his dream did not protect him from the feeling of his stomach falling into his throat.

If there was ever an advantage to Rinoa's nightmares, he thought, the one two days ago had at least distracted him from that feeling.

"Still there?" Rinoa's hand lay clasped in his on the hard seat of the cab, and she brought him out of his daze with a light brush of her thumb.

"It's passing."

The streetlights moved her in and out of the shadows, but he saw her smile, and returned it, weakly.

"I tried to let you sleep."

"I know. And I did. I think I was dreaming."

_She was standing in front of him, her eyes glittering and her hair black, and he could not see past her to know where they were. She stared, a smile caught on her lips like a secret. She was trying to tell him something, if he could just focus-_

"Dreaming?"

_And finally, after what could have been hours she spoke, and her voice was young. "Wake up."_

"Yeah."

_"We're almost home, baby. Wake up." _

"About-oh, we're almost home."

"Home?" He blinked, hard. Real Rinoa, older, shrouded in the shadows of the cab, furrowed her brow. "Yes, Squall… Where are you?"

_She giggled, and walked towards him, leaning up so their noses touched._

"Squall?"

"Sorry. It's just the landing."

Rinoa shook her head, and they watched their house pull into view as the cab turned onto their street.

Working on the project that brought air travel to Timber (and the subsequent economic surge) was the first time Rinoa had mentioned her fear of flying. A fear she'd never had before space, she'd said. Not before she woke up looking at the planet from above with no clue as to how she got there and certain she would die. Flying, having an aerial view of the ground, brought back those memories. Squall watched her watch the first airplane land on Timber soil and told her he understood.

But he would always hate the landings.

They wondered, usually while laughing, at why two people who hated to fly would make their home so far away from the rest of the world. At how they would apparently never get used to it.

Then they would come home and it would all be worth it.

"Bed?"

They walked in through the side door and Squall looked down the hall, the thought of sleep, of their own bed tempting, the early call of his return to work already loud in his head. Instead he shook his head and nodded upstairs. "Coffee."

Rinoa smiled. "I was hoping you'd say that." She pulled their suitcase a few feet into the hall and Squall watched her, as he had in the cab. She was different, and he didn't think it had a thing to do with his dream, even if he wasn't brave enough to give it voice. "What?"

"Nothing," he said, and started the slow walk up the stairs. "Still waking up."

"Liar." She brushed past him, and in minutes the smell of coffee filled the living room, giving the house the feeling of very early morning despite the fact that it was not yet midnight. In the bright upstairs light their reflections took positions leaning against something in the kitchen while they watched the coffee finish brewing. Rinoa poured them each a mug, and they breathed in the feeling of home. The warm ceramic was comforting and chased away the last of the discomfort from the flight, and Squall ventured to speak.

"You seem-"

"You were dream-"

They looked at each other and Rinoa laughed, a growing laugh that nearly resulted in her spilling coffee all over the counter. Squall pulled the mug out of her hands, and used it to lead her towards the couch. "Yes, I was dreaming," he said, settling in while she regained composure, and he warmed at the closeness of her when she stretched her legs across his. "At least, I think."

"About what?"

"You." He handed her back her mug. "You're always in my dreams."

"Very romantic." She raised her eyebrows, and they let the darkness inherent in his comment slide. "What was I doing?"

"Watching me. I think you wanted to tell me something but I couldn't figure it out. Then you told me to wake up. I don't know if we were doing anything before the staring. But you were younger."

"You're calling me old?" She pulled on a few strands of her hair. "That's not very nice."

Squall paused, and Rinoa's laugh died out, the air around her dropping, if only for a second, into the old familiar.

"Maybe a little." He reached for his own hair as if to compare. "But at least you can take a flight of steps."

"And a walk around town."

"Now who isn't being nice?"

Rinoa let her hair fall through her fingers, and Squall absently brought his hand to his leg. If taking him out of service hadn't been reward enough, he occasionally appreciated this weakness, even if it was mostly background noise by now. Once it may have made him pitifully human beside her immortality, but now it was proof that they were both falling apart.

"It's been awhile."

"For-"

"Dreaming."

"For…both of us."

Squall took a slow pull of his coffee, enjoying the gentle pressure of Rinoa's legs on his, and listened to the muted crashing of the waves.

"I seem?"

"Hmm?"

"You said I seem. What?" Rinoa swung her legs to the floor and stood, and Squall handed her his empty cup, eyes never leaving her as she walked into the kitchen. She filled it, and hers, and stopped with the carafe in mid air to look at him. "Well?"

"…Happy." He felt the word sit, more than hang in the air. Rinoa bit her lip, set the carafe on the counter, and picked up her mug, holding it more tightly than was probably necessary.

"I…" she started.

"I just mean…"

"No, it's… I- This weekend…" She sighed, and Squall frowned. "No, don't."

"Don't-"

"Don't get frowny."

"I'm not."

"You are. You're frowning."

"That doesn't mean I'm _frowny._"

"I just…" Her shoulders dropped, and she picked up his mug and walked towards him. "I meant it. What I said, yesterday, about being relieved."

"Okay."

"But you're still waiting for the bottom to fall out."

"…."

"Squall…"

"It was my idea."

"I told you. You didn't betray me."

"I feel like I did."

"You…" She brought her coffee to her lips, and Squall watched the ripples skate across it where her breath hit the surface. "I felt like you did when I first woke up yesterday."

"I-"

"-Let me finish. When I first woke up. I just… I woke up, and I was in bed and Noelle was there, and of course I knew what had happened, and I… I was angry. Angry with Noelle for being there, and with myself. Angry with you, because if you hadn't decided we needed to go down there… But then… I don't know, Squall. I just kind of watched Noelle for a few minutes, and it hit me that the person I'm really angry with is Edea."

"Edea?" Squall furrowed his eyebrows and shifted so he could face her more directly. _Edea?_ It had been awhile since…

Rinoa nodded. "And not just for hiding this. For… For everything. Well maybe not everything, not for…for the succession itself. But everything afterwards. Never talking to me. Never _teaching_ me. This…_thing _happened between us that nobody had any control over, and she…left me to drown. And I spent all of this time making up excuses as to why without ever really… Well, I guess I just wanted to blame anyone but her. I wanted to blame Cid, or Garden, or Seifer, sometimes even you if we'd just had a fight. Anyone else, because I kept hoping if I was good enough or patient enough or _whatever_ enough she would come around, but then… After she died I thought that maybe I forgave her, because we were already talking about passing it to Noelle, and I just thought of how _hard_ it was going to be to explain everything, but… I haven't. I haven't forgiven her at all. I don't even think I realized until yesterday just how angry I've been." She paused. "Am."

"Rin…" Something in him twisted, and she looked so small, sitting beside him with her eyes cast down.

"And I don't… I don't want that. I don't want Noelle to resent me years after I'm gone because I was too…what, ashamed? to be there for her."

"They're…" The words died, already wrong, and Squall took in a small breath.

"Don't… They _are_ the same." She looked up and met his eyes. "They are. It doesn't… It doesn't matter that now it's family, or intentional, or that the first time Edea even met me was when… It shouldn't have mattered. And if it did, she… She had a chance to make up for it. Whether she had any blame in it or not, she had the I chance to help, and she didn't."

"Do you think it's because of-"

"-_this?"_ Rinoa waved an arm across her face, and let her eyes close and started to fall back against the couch.

"Hey-" Squall pressed a hand between her shoulders to catch her and she opened her eyes. "That's not funny."

Rinoa took a last sip of her coffee and set the mug on the table, and sighed. "It isn't. But…yes. I do think it's why, but it doesn't… Anyway, that's why… I'm grateful. Because I was going to do the same thing, for the same reason, without even realizing it. Only it would have been worse because I told Noelle I would be there for her. And…now I get to be."

Squall slid his fingers across her back and into her hair, and when she didn't continue, he said, "But now something's bothering you. You were lighter when we got home."

"It's not…bothering me, I don't think." She sighed. "Maybe I'm just thinking about it more, now that I'm talking about it."

He arched an eyebrow.

"I'm really… I'm okay with this Squall. I promise. And… I don't know. I want to…" She sat up a little straighter now, her eyes brighter. "I want to find out more about it."

He felt the twisted thing inside him start to uncoil. "You-"

"I do. You know, we don't even know for a fact this actually happened to Edea. Maybe all those times she wouldn't talk to us or they would spontaneously cancel plans they really were just shutting us out. Maybe we're reading too much into it. It would explain why Ellone never said anything. Still hasn't said anything." She leaned back, and Squall shook his head.

"I don't know that I would go that far."

"I don't _think_ that's it, but we don't _know_. Not for a fact. In all the research we've done over the last thirty years, all those hours you spent in Odine's lab, we never heard anything about this."

"Well it's hard to research what happens after you transfer your powers when there are so few documented cases of it happening…peacefully." He chose his words carefully, and Rinoa laughed.

"You mean when most of my predecessors were killed by angry mobs?"

"Or shot into space."

"Or were so old or isolated that nobody would have thought twice about them blanking out even if they did."

"Yeah. That's pretty much what I meant." He returned her smile now, and she reached for his hand. He traced his thumb across one of the thin white lines on her fingers and she stretched them out. "I guess we aren't as done learning about this as we thought."

"Guess not. There's probably no need to ask if you've still got all of that, is there?"

"No," he shook his head. "No there really isn't." Boxes of essays and experiments, crazed notes scratched onto napkins and detailed historical accounts, all taken slowly from Esthar with Laguna's help, outside of Garden's radar. Squall guarded them as closely as his gunblade-possibly even closer; even this far south, after this much time, he checked their vault regularly. A compulsion Rinoa once teased him about, until he finally stopped talking about them and his paranoia became simply habit. And now…

"What?"

His smile spread, and he was amazed that his initial reaction to learning about Seifer's research had been anger, to telling her had been apprehension. "I still have everything. But I may have something even better."


	11. Chapter 11

Squall stood on the deck, arms pressed against the cold wood of the railing, and marked the passing of time by the flickers of candlelight moving down the beach towards the setting sun, strongest in the east and growing brighter westward as the afternoon waned. Their own deck was marked with pumpkins Rinoa had carved the day before while he was at work, their lights still mostly invisible, but not for long. He heard the door to the deck slide open, followed immediately by an expected, if not unwelcome, voice.

"You look like you're ready to just jump over the edge and start running at a moment's notice."

Squall kept his eyes on the beach. The first families were making their way over the dune bridges, costumed children running towards the shore to play. At the end of their own bridge Rinoa and Irvine sat in chairs with their backs to the house, and Squall watched them watch the kids. Finally he turned to his sister, petite and smiling.

"You cut your hair," he said.

"You might have noticed sooner if you'd have bothered to tell me you two were coming to Galbadia last weekend." Ellone shook her head, smile still present.

"It was spur of the moment."

"You still could have called. Or come up to Dollet if you'd already gone through the trouble of getting on a plane."

"Elle…" Squall sighed, and turned back to the beach. The candles in the pumpkins were growing ever brighter, and more and more families were joining those already on the sand.

"Fine."

Ellone joined him at the rail and pressed her shoulder into his, and Squall could feel her watching him.

"What?"

"What's wrong?"

He didn't answer.

"Oh come on. I haven't heard a single word from you since September and you're really not going to talk?"

"Elle, it's been less than two months."

"Yeah, but-"

"Ellone."

She let out a heavy breath, shoved her shoulder against his hard enough to knock him a little to the side, but changed the subject. "Hell of a bonfire you guys have ready to go." She gestured towards the beach, at a huge pile of wood halfway between the end of their bridge and the tide line, surrounded by more glowing pumpkins.

"Rinoa's been busy this week."

"I was beginning to think you guys weren't doing it this year. Nobody's heard from you since… Well, not for a few weeks anyway."

Squall tightened his jaw. "We do it every year. Why would this be any different?"

"You are being exceptionally difficult today, little brother."

"And that's different from any other day?" He felt Ellone smile beside him, and this time he gave her shoulder a nudge.

"Touché."

"And we weren't sure we were doing it, either."

"I'm glad you are. It's…"

"I know."

"Well it's another year without anyone new at least. What is this, three years now?"

Squall nodded.

"We've had longer streaks than that. And we're getting bigger instead of smaller, finally."

Squall turned and raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry?"

Ellone's cheeks flushed. "Well, there's Ivy…"

"Ivy's not new. Ellone-"

"-Alright. But I think he wanted to tell you himself, so I'm going to assume he's down there telling Rinoa so I don't have to feel guilty, but Irvine's stepdaughter is expecting."

Squall frowned, and looked back towards the end of the bridge. Rinoa and Irvine were occupied with what looked to be young siblings, their parents standing near the bonfire ring.

"I figured that would be good news," Ellone said when he did not respond.

"She's just so young."

"She's the same age as Noelle."

"Which is _why_ I said she's so young."

Ellone laughed, and Squall absorbed the news. Twenty two. But that only put her a year younger than he and Rinoa were, when he came home one night to her sitting on the bathroom floor, face streaked with tears, and she said she didn't know why but she wanted to try and have a baby. _But we'd already been together for so long, it didn't feel that young…_

"His wife doesn't seem old enough to be a grandmother. She'd have been what, nineteen?"

"Twenty. And you'd already been married for two years when you were twenty, which is more time than a lot of people wait. Not everyone takes a decade the way you two did."

"Not everyone has a choice," Squall snapped, and Ellone looked appropriately abashed.

"I-"

"Don't."

"You're in quite a mood, aren't you?"

"What's he think about it?"

Ellone paused, and Squall gestured towards the beach.

"Irvine?" she asked.

Squall nodded.

"You could ask him, you know. He'll probably be more honest with you than with me anyway."

"Doubtful."

"But?"

"But he'll be honest with Rinoa."

He crossed his arms on the railing and leaned closer to the edge, and thought Ellone had a point. He was ready to jump down and run to her aide, still in slight disbelief she'd been so willing to be in the company of someone else without him. Especially after last weekend.

"You know, you'd think the novelty would have worn off by now, but it never fails to amuse me when I see little girls dressed as witches walk up to Rinoa."

Squall snorted. "Yeah. That's always been one of her favorite things about tonight."

"Did she ever go for the full costumes? Just for fun?"

He shook his head. "Tempting fate. Or she thought so, at least. Some, when Noelle was small, but never as a witch."

Ellone laughed. "It's rather brilliant irony. And none of them ever knew."

"Yeah, well, it's amazing what people can hide from the people who trust them."

The mood shifted instantly, and Squall didn't even look at her to apologize.

"That was…pointed."

Squall grunted. "If you're in the mood to talk, go down and join the two of them." He turned abruptly and walked inside, Ellone close at his heels.

"So you finally took your eyes off her, because you're mad at me over something? What's going on, Squall?"

"Ellone-" his tone was a warning, and he walked into the kitchen and stared, at a loss.

"You've been watching her like you're waiting for something to happen."

"Like I'm waiting for _what_ to happen?"

"I honestly have no clue. She's with Irvine. Ten years ago I could have guessed, but you all were actually grown-ups about that. Nothing else-"

"No," he gritted his teeth. "And don't ever suggest-"

"I'm not _suggesting._"

"You can't think of anything else I might be worried about right now?"

"I…"

He placed his hands on the kitchen counter and leaned forward, much as he had on the deck, and let out a heavy sigh.

"Squall, I'm sorry. I really… Is something… I'm… I'm starting to get _worried_-"

"_Now_ you're worried. Now. You…" He brought a hand to his forehead, took a deep breath, and tried to ignore how concerned, how genuinely _confused_ Ellone looked. "I'm going to bring Rinoa some coffee."

"Squall-"

"It's getting cold, and she went down there without taking any with her."

"Stop it. She's fine. You're hiding behind her. Just tell me what you're trying to say, and-"

"Elle-"

"Fine. _I_ will bring her some coffee, and give you a chance to collect yourself so maybe you can actually have a conversation instead of stuttering and shutting down."

Ellone brushed past him and pulled the carafe from the warmer dramatically, and jerked a tumbler from Squall's hands he didn't even realized he'd picked up. Once it was full she pulled a mug from one of the hooks over the counter, filled it, and handed it to him.

"Not that you seem to need any caffeine, but here. I'll be right back."

She disappeared onto the porch and down the steps, quick and lithe, and Squall slowly followed, the warmth from the mug settling into his hands and calming his nerves. In the minutes they'd been inside the beach had filled with families, and it burned with the glow of pumpkins in all directions. Rinoa and Irvine turned to greet Ellone a few feet before she reached them, and Squall watched the conversation and forced himself to breathe.

Rinoa glanced towards the house and waved, and the struggle for a connection ached, strong enough he could almost convince himself he could feel it. _Stop worrying_.

_Look who's talking,_ he thought, and shook his head. He lifted his hand just so, and saw Ellone lean in to whisper something to her. Rinoa shook her head and the same feeling that he could hear her voice returned. _Really. It's okay._

_If you need me I'm not going to make it out there fast enough._

He saw her laugh and shake her head, and Ellone started towards the house. Rinoa and Irvine turned back to the beach, and he tracked his sister as she moved closer.

"She says thank you, and to stop worrying about her."

"Mmm."

"Now what?"

"What does that mean?"

"It means you're still over thinking something."

He took a sip of coffee, and sighed. "I just… It still feels sometimes like I can hear her."

Ellone tilted her head and smiled a thin smile, almost sad, almost, Squall felt, patronizing. "Oh, Squall."

He waited, his eyes trained on her, then turned around to re-light one of the candles on the deck that had gone out in the time between when Rinoa left for the beach, and the sun dropped enough to see their lights.

"Did you ever think this is why we haven't called you?" he asked.

"Because I care?"

"Because you were going to do this."

"I'm just trying to talk to you."

"You're mocking me."

"I'm not, I'm really not. I just…think you might have finally figured something out."

"Have I." He picked up his coffee and resumed his place against the rail.

Ellone sighed, and dragged a captains' chair to rest beside him and pulled herself into it. "Maybe enough time just hasn't passed yet."

"Would you stop being so damn cryptic and just say what it is you have to say?"

"Alright. You said that sometimes it feels like you can still hear her, but Squall… Why wouldn't you be able to?"

"-"

"-and before you try and answer with the obvious… Just think about it."

Squall exhaled slowly, and focused on the light-play on the beach. "Because it's what I expected."

"Not being able-"

"Elle-"

"Well you're on to something. You're not expecting to hear her, right?"

"Why should I?"

"Why shouldn't you?"

"You…" He drew in a sharp breath and rounded on her. "You know what, I'm not playing this game with you. Stop making me second guess myself when things… When you- Dammit Ellone, I just don't _understand._" He slammed a hand against the rail and one of the pumpkins shuddered.

"I-"

"No, not this. Not whether Rinoa and I can still- I can be mad at Edea and mad at Cid, but at least I understand it, but you? I don't… I don't understand it from you."

"Squall… What the hell are you talking about?"

He balled one hand into a fist and kept the other firmly gripped around the coffee mug, and counted slowly to ten.

"Who are you protecting, Elle? She's dead. She's been dead for awhile, and we're still here, and it's not like you can hide it from us anymore."

"Hide _what?"_

"Just _stop."_

"I'm not doing anything! You're being accusatory for no reason."

"No reason. So what, you just didn't notice? All those years helping Edea and it just escaped your attention?"

"_What_ escaped my attention, Squall? I…Oh-" Something almost like horror crossed her face. "You don't know."

"Well we figured it out pretty quickly."

"You… How?"

Squall stared at her. "How? Well, your wife spaces out on a regular basis and can't even tell you her own name, it's not hard to miss."

"I-" Her voice caught. "What?"

The air between them froze, their space on the deck separated by worlds from the laughter rising from the sand.

"Squall… She…what?"

He set the mug on the rail and flexed his fingers, trying to find his voice, to not explode on someone who seemed honestly, infuriatingly, confused.

"What were you about to say? What… What didn't we know?"

"Squall-"

"Just tell me. I am so fucking sick and tired of the rest of you always assuming we know what's going on, at least _tell me_ whatever it is you were about to say."

She sighed. "Seifer…came to Winhill."

"I know. Until June found him, and they moved down here."

Ellone shook her head. "He came to Winhill…years before that."

"How…many years?" Squall tensed.

"…Eight."

"_Eight?_"

She nodded. "Right before Cid-"

"Before Cid died. After he and Edea moved up there to be with _you, _so you'd be there to help_._"

"That was the plan. But then he just…showed up."

"And you never thought to tell us?"

"Well… He asked us not to."

"It seems like a lot of that went on. Did you all just think we couldn't handle it? That Rinoa and I were better kept in a bubble of your invention, only finding out what someone else deemed it _necessary_ for us to know?" _Just like Garden,_ he thought. Just like everything else. All for their own good.

All for _whose_ own good, was the better question.

"Squall, he just asked, okay, and he was really serious about it. I don't think… There's a lot I don't understand, okay? I didn't find out at the time, and obviously I can't exactly ask now."

"You lived next door to them for years. How could you… What were you _doing?"_

"You know what I was doing. I had all those kids coming and going, I was honestly grateful he showed up. Especially once Bastian and I were married, and we started taking them in formally. Some of them… Having an extra person around wouldn't have done those kids any favors. They needed stability. Seifer being with Edea made it easier for me to provide that."

Squall shook his head, and breathed around his frustration.

"We… We went up there to visit. Often. How did he hide in plain sight for that long?"

"Seriously?"

"What?"

"Squall Leonhart, master of deception, is asking me how someone hides in plain sight? We were _just _talking about this! You and Rinoa kept her inheritance a public secret for over thirty years. And now you're keeping it for your daughter. You, brother, could fill volumes on only letting people know what you want them to know. And if that isn't enough for you, you know he stayed hidden for the years before. If Garden said lay low-"

"You laid low. Yeah. I get it from him. I don't get how my own family, how my sister who is _not_ Garden, kept that secret. How you continued to keep it for a dead man for the last three years."

"I promised, Squall."

He grunted.

"You know, if I'd told you three years ago you would have been mad then."

"And by now I'd be over it."

"You're impossible."

"Anything else you haven't told me?" He picked up the mug again, mostly cold in the falling temperatures, and took a sip regardless.

"We lived together for almost a year before Cid died, right before I met Bastian."

Squall spit out the coffee, and Ellone burst into laughter.

"That was a joke," he said, and placed the mug back on the rail. "You're laughing."

She laughed harder. "Your face, Squall. I wish I had a camera."

"Ellone, tell me that's a joke."

"Fine, fine, I'm joking."

"Thank-"

"It was only about six months."

Her laughter died out, slight apprehension visible on her face despite a present smile, and Squall drew his lips into a thin line. "Unbelievable."

"Oh come on, Squall. You always used to fuss that I was still alone after so long."

"When I said it was time you found someone to take care of you I didn't mean _him._"

"How do you know I wasn't taking care of him?"

"That sounds more likely."

"Or maybe it was just a friends thing that turned…friendlier-"

"There are a lot of things I really just don't need to hear about."

"Well, you asked."

"No I didn't-"

"Okay, you didn't. But now you know-"

"-and wish I didn't-"

"-so my secrets are all out. But yours aren't. What do you mean she 'spaces out?' She just gets confused?"

Squall looked once more to his mug, wishing it was more than just coffee. Or at least, that it was still hot.

"I can refill that for you if it helps," Ellone pointed at it, and Squall shook his head, and in doing so let out a breath he felt like he'd been holding for the last month.

"You know, I can't be mad at you for keeping Seifer a secret, because I'm just so damn relieved it's not the alternative."

Ellone nodded and said nothing, and Squall was grateful for the eternal patience she possessed. Annoy him though she may, she and Rinoa were the only ones who had ever granted him the time to find the words they needed him to say. That _he_ needed to say.

"I wish it were as simple as her getting confused. That's… I know what to do with that. I've got years of experience with that, but this… Even if you weren't living with her, you had to have noticed something was off with Edea."

"She become a lot more withdrawn, yeah. I passed it off for the longest time as just regret, or guilt… I didn't expect her to be the same after the war, after all. Then after Cid died, I just assumed it was grief."

"Never anything else?"

She leaned forward and placed her arms against the rail, identical to his. "Like I said… I was kind of relieved that Seifer showed up. And after Bastian and I started fostering… Well, you met some of the kids we had on occasion. Just making it through the day was a success for us at times. But… Now that you mention it, yes. In quieter times, I did find it strange she didn't spend more time with us."

"What about before?"

"When I was still in Esthar?"

He nodded.

"I'm sorry, Squall. I didn't… I'd been separated from Laguna for years. From _you._ I'd spent my whole life with Edea up to a point, when I found the rest of you I had a lot of time to make up for. Any distance from her I think I just took as letting me leave the nest, and no small amount of awkward apology for things she couldn't control. But you can't compare them. My relationship with the Kramers… It was nothing like yours."

"There's an understatement."

"I just mean… Well, yes. You know what I mean. So, Rinoa?"

"It's not distance. She's… She's just gone."

"Is she conscious?"

"In the loosest definition of the word. Her eyes are open and sometimes she'll walk around, but she's so far in her own head. She doesn't talk, doesn't eat, can't respond to anything. I keep the doors locked because if I don't she'll just walk out."

"Where does she go?"

"Our places. And I don't know if it's because they're ours, or just because they're… What does she call them, something to do with memory and energy or whatever."

"And this started…"

"With the transfer."

"Well then I'm sorry for giving you hell about not calling."

"Thanks."

"But now that I know, I'm _really_ going to give you hell about it. Why didn't you tell me?" She smacked the back of his hand, and he shrugged.

"I think that should be clear. We just assumed you knew."

"How? I haven't made a habit of invading your brain in awhile, if you hadn't noticed."

"Very funny. Because of Edea. Since nobody bothered to let us know that Seifer was right there the whole time, we bought the line that you were living with her. It stood to reason you'd have known this was coming, and just didn't bother to warn us."

"So the same thing happened with Edea… You think it's related to the succession?"

"We think so, yeah."

"Mmm."

"What?"

"Nothing. Or, I don't know, rather."

"That makes three of us."

"Does Noelle know?"

"She uh, found out last weekend. Not exactly how we'd planned it, but Rinoa says she's fine with it. Was she… Was Noelle okay, when she got to Dollet?"

"I wouldn't have been able to tell if she wasn't. She's got Rinoa's enthusiasm and your ability to keep her thoughts completely locked away. One of you could have died and she'd have come back with a smile on her face until she was ready to talk about it."

"Morbid."

"Thanks. But to answer your question, she seemed fine. Told us you were the reason she missed her train and that you drank all of her wine, to which June immediately called her bluff and we all had a good laugh, and I wanted to kick your ass for coming to continent and still missing everything. This time of year you couldn't even take the ferry, which means you had to go as far north as Timber-"

"I would hope it makes a little bit more sense now why we didn't want to be around a lot of people."

"Then what about tonight?"

"And now the answer to your question about why I've been watching her so closely."

"Your web of mystery is slowly unravelling."

"I wish."

In the darkness Ellone gave him a smile, and placed a hand on his arm.

"Thank you for telling me."

"Thank _you_, for your biggest secret being about your terrible taste in men, and not that you were concealing vital information about my family's future."

"I can see why you were pissed."

"Yeah."

"Do you think she told Irvine?"

The beach was almost empty, and Rinoa and Irvine were shadows, walking around the dark shape of tomorrow's bonfire. They finished their circle and started back towards the house, and Squall shook his head.

"No."

"Are you?"

"The only reason I told _you,_ is because you tricked me."

"You made an assumption. That's hardly me tricking you."

"An assumption based on you withholding information."

"Still."

"Is there any coffee left?" Rinoa called out before she'd reached the end of the bridge, and Ellone laughed.

"Just Squall's dregs, but they're pretty cold."

"You mean coffee was left in a cup in the Leonhart house long enough to get cold? I refuse to believe it." Irvine leaned the folding chairs he and Rinoa had used the lower railing, and grinned up at them.

"See for yourself." Ellone held the mug over the rail and threatened to splash the remains in his direction. He held one hand over his head, and took Rinoa's in the other and dragged her towards the steps. On the upper deck Ellone pushed the mug into Irvine's hands, and Rinoa walked towards Squall and pressed herself against him.

"You're freezing," he said. "You should have come up sooner."

"Probably," she responded. "But you're warm."

He pulled her closer and ran his hands up and down her back trying to warm her, and shivered when she pressed icy hands against his chest.

"You okay?" he mumbled against her hair.

"All clear. You?"

He half chuckled in response, and Rinoa looked up at him and raised an eyebrow, and he leaned down to kiss her before she had a chance to ask any questions.

"I'll be damned, there is cold coffee in your house."

"We drink iced coffee sometimes," Rinoa lowered her head and turned it towards Irvine, and then let it fall against Squall's shoulder. He slowed his hands against her back, letting one move up to rest against her hair.

Irvine made a face. "Well I guess it's a good thing I brought a few extra bottles of wine. When are the girls getting here?"

"Not until the morning," Rinoa said.

"More for us, then." He grinned, opened the door, and gestured the rest of them inside. Ellone gave Squall a tiny nod before entering, and Rinoa slid an arm around his waist, and nudged him towards the house. Squall responded by letting the arm against her hair fall to her shoulders, and walked with her into the warm living room. In minutes Irvine had uncorked two bottles of wine and filled glasses Ellone pulled from the cabinets.

"Do we drink to the dead?" Irvine asked, nodding to the table where they'd already begun their place settings.

"That's tomorrow," Rinoa shook her head. "Let's drink to good news."

Irvine laughed. "If you can call it that. Grandfather. What the hell."

"To…" Squall started, and stared at his glass, at a loss.

"Family," Ellone supplied. "Whatever that happens to mean."

"Cheers," Irvine raised his glass, and the others followed.

_"Cheers."_

Squall let his glass _clink_ against the others and took and sip, and then turned back to Rinoa and gave her another, deeper kiss, and ignored Irvine and Ellone's predictable reactions.

"What was that?" Rinoa asked when he pulled away, cheeks red and eyes glittering.

"I love you," he said. "That's all."

She giggled and raised her glass between them, and he matched the gesture and knocked his against hers. "That's enough," she said, and they drank, and when he kissed her again, lighter, her lips tasted like wine.

_._

Hours later, Squall stood in their bedroom and watched Rinoa through the glass of the sliding door. She wore a thin white sweater that fell her to knees, and it moved in the wind, glowing in the nearly full moon. Her hair fluttered around her, spectral, and the sight gave Squall chills. He slid open the door, and joined her on the deck.

"Let's go to bed." He stepped behind her and slid wine-clumsy hands down her arms, over her shoulders, pressing one hand against her waist and the other on the neckline of her shirt, and buried his face in the curve of her neck.

"It's still so beautiful." Rinoa leaned into him, and her hair smelled like the sulfur of a thousand candles on the beach mixed with the spicy-sweet of something that lingered in the kitchen, prepped for the next day.

"Come on." Squall let his chin rest against her for just a moment, and pulled her towards him. "You're cold."

She shivered and turned around, surprised, as if she had not realized this until he pointed it out. Then she giggled, and slid cold fingers down the side of his face and brought them to rest on his lips. "Okay."

He let her lead him back inside, and they undressed quickly, quietly, and under the covers she drew herself against him.

"I had a good night," she said, her breath warm on his shoulder.

"Good," Squall replied. He let his hand move across her back absently, and finally brought it to rest on her hip, her skin smooth beneath calloused palms. She shivered again, and he pulled her closer. "No problems?"

"Nope… Not for me at least. What were you and Ellone fighting about?"

Squall let his eyes close, far too comfortable from the warmth of drink and Rinoa's skin to feel like repeating everything he'd learned. He turned his head so his lips pressed against her hair, and said, "The past, mostly. And the last month. She wanted to know what everyone wants to know."

"Did you tell her?"

"Not intentionally."

"What do you mean?"

"It was a long talk. Since we thought she would had known about Edea, why wouldn't it be true for you? But it turns out, she didn't. Seifer was in Winhill the whole time, Ellone never knew anything. We've been mad at her for nothing."

"Seifer?" Rinoa shifted her head towards his, and he moved his hand up, over her side, and took her hand.

"Yeah." He stifled a yawn. "Do you want details tonight?"

"…No." She tightened her fingers around his. "You can tell me tomorrow. It sounds complicated, and I'm too melty for complicated."

He smiled and said nothing, and felt like they were melting indeed, sinking into the mattress to the blur of the outside world.

"What else?"

Rinoa's question broke the veil of sleep that covered him gracefully, and he thought at first she was speaking through a dream. "Hmm?"

"What else? I felt… I thought I could feel you." Her voice was soft, words half slurred, and he thought of what Ellone had asked him. _Why shouldn't you?_

"Me too," he said, his voice heavy. "It wasn't the first time."

"Since…?"

"Mmhmm. Ellone seems to think it's normal. That we shouldn't have expected differently."

"Why?"

"She wouldn't say."

"Mmm." Rinoa shifted and rolled to her other side and Squall followed suit, his chest against her shoulders, their arms entwined. "What do you think?"

What did he think? The question stayed at the front of his mind all night, every laugh, every touch, every movement triggering over thirty years of memories, of having her voice, her thoughts, inside his head. They were seventeen, after all. _Seventeen._ And at the time he'd felt so old, but now he couldn't fathom the weight of those months, their time before.

"I can't really remember. We were too young, we hardly knew each other. Trying to read your mind was…"

"Was?"

He shook his head, and she slid her fingers against his. "I don't know."

"You don't think they're related? The succession, and this link we have? Or…had, at least."

"Elle implied… But it's just what we always assumed. It's when it started. How do we separate the two?"

"Maybe she's right," Rinoa's voice was growing softer, slipping back into sleep. "Maybe it just strengthened something that would have been there anyway."

Squall said nothing, and allowed himself to concentrate on the heat from her body, on how seamlessly they fit together with him curled behind her, like they'd been designed to match. She was smaller now, but so was he; time and age kept them molded together even if circumstance continuously tried to pull them apart.

_I love you,_ he thought, and did not hear it back but could _feel_ it.

_Why shouldn't we?_

"Maybe," he finally said. "We gave it…too much credit."

She took a long time to respond, and then, "Maybe. It hasn't gone away. It's not the same, not as strong, but… I can feel you there sometimes. I could tonight."

"Me too." Squall's eyes burned under closed lids, and his arm was heavy across Rinoa's side, the idea of this rolling in his mind in a rhythmic, soothing pace, bringing a sense of peace to something he didn't know he even still questioned. "I used to wonder," he started, calm against this thing unspoken. "What would have happened to us? Would you have given up on me, and we would have our separate ways?"

He felt a shudder, different from her shivers from before, and she sniffled, almost too quiet for him to hear.

"Are you crying?"

"No," she said, and choked on a small giggle and gave herself away. "Maybe."

"Rinoa…"

"I've just…wondered that too. Was all of this a lie, created by the succession? This powerful love… Was it real?" She laughed again, and Squall pulled her against him, trying to force them into one body.

"Yes," he said, and thought his voice shook from the fear of not having her, of missing the chance to love her, to _be loved by_ her, and at the same time her heard her say, "Of course."

He smiled, and squeezed her fingers.

"You never gave up on me. You still haven't. I wouldn't-" She drew in a breath and continued after a beat. "I wouldn't have given up on you. We had help, but…I know the rest of it was us. Is us."

"Is," Squall agreed.

"I love you," Rinoa turned her head enough to meet his lips, and then lay back against the pillow, and Squall placed a kiss lightly against her shoulder.

"I love you, too."

His words fell through the air along with a sudden shift in her breathing, and he felt her fingers go slack in his hand.

"Rinoa?" He whispered her name into her ear and gave her a gentle shake, squeezed her fingers, and it did nothing. She was gone. He held her closer as sleep pulled at him, and Squall ignored the sting of tears his eyes and surrendered.


	12. Chapter 12

Squall woke to the pink light of sunrise, and Rinoa's steady breathing. His head was heavy from the night before and he closed his eyes and entertained the idea of drifting off for another hour or so. It was warm under the covers, and early enough that nobody else would be awake. He turned and ran a hand over Rinoa, listening to her breathe, and wondered where she was. Their conversation from the night before rolled through his thoughts, sleep-drunk words he only half remembered that left him with a feeling of peace.

She was not in distress, but that was all he could tell; everything else he reached for was clouded by his own feelings. Worry, love, the gentle laziness of morning.

He kissed her temple and let out a quiet sigh, pulled out of bed by other needs, and when he stepped out of the bathroom he knew going back to sleep was a lost cause. Instead he dressed and went upstairs to make coffee, and surveyed the kitchen over a glass of water while he waited for it to brew. Four wine glasses stood in the sink beside a coffee mug and empty tumbler, and the bar was strewn with Ellone and Irvine's various gifts and belongings: several more unopened bottles of wine, car keys, half the contents of a bag of groceries. For a moment Squall considered unpacking what remained in the bag, but his eyes fell instead the small table against the dining room wall, the memorial (not an altar, Rinoa would insist) that stood year round, and tonight they would honor with a meal he only hoped Rinoa was present enough to help prepare.

He frowned. The coffee maker announced it was finished and Squall carried a steaming mug with him to the dining room table and took a seat, facing the memorial. The table was small and dark, covered only by a thin white cloth and a series of photographs of the friends and family they'd said goodbye to over the years. Less, Squall imagined, than some, but then their family had always felt smaller than some, pieced together by choice and circumstance more than by blood.

"Asshole," he said to the picture of Seifer, and it smirked back at him.

"So why didn't you ever tell me?" he asked. "You lived almost next door to us. You owed us… You owed _her._ Time and again you said you felt responsible, and this… You could have given her this. You could have saved her from…" Squall took a sip of his coffee, and shook his head.

"And now I'm talking to your ghost. Accusing you, as though telling her could have kept it from happening."

After Esthar, after Garden finally released him from their medical center along with his discharge papers from service, after finding Rinoa _alive, _she told him she'd seen Seifer. That she'd seen them both and had to watch Quistis die while she was helpless to stop it, and after dropping her and Kadowaki off at G-Garden he disappeared, along with whatever escort had been sent in for her extraction.

"And then seven years later you show up here with a teenager and asked if we knew of any houses for sale. You just…" Squall looked now to the sea, and tried to ignore the energy stirring lightly between the collection of photographs. He could claim this was Rinoa's holiday, grown from a private ritual she'd started as a child; a dreamer's attempt at hearing her mother's voice. He could say that he'd spent enough of his life surrounded by the dead, but it wouldn't be entirely true. Not anymore. All year the faces of lost friends watched them, and it would seem disrespectful not to honor them like this.

"I guess when I said I never felt the need to talk to you I was lying to myself," he said, still facing the sea. "But I'm not sure what I'm expecting in return."

_"I've heard them. Sometimes,"_ Rinoa often reminded him, and he often responded by telling her she could hear a lot of things closed to the rest of the world, and she would shake her head. _"Not always. I could hear my mother, before."_

Squall heard nothing, and he wasn't sure he wanted to. He finished his coffee slowly, to the early palette of the sun, and when he went to refill it he pulled down a jar from one of the cabinets and another, smaller mug and filled that as well. He carried the second mug to the table and placed it in the center, and opened the jar and dropped two vanilla bean pods beside it.

"Not that you deserve it," he said, and studied the picture-pictures, more carefully. Seifer was the most recently added, and he tensed at how close Rinoa came to joining them this year, whether she would admit to it or not. For a moment he could almost see her face smiling at him amidst the others, and he turned away. This was not a tradition he could have carried out alone.

By the sun it was nearing seven, and Squall considered his options. June, Ivy, and Noelle wouldn't be there for another couple of hours, and it would be equally as long before he could expect anyone else in the house to be awake. He filled another glass of water and looked outside, and the sun glinting on the waves beckoned to him.

Downstairs, Rinoa lay curled in bed exactly as he left her. Her hair fell behind her, greying waves on faded sheets, and the comforter moved with her steady breathing. Watching her, Squall felt timeless. Changes now in color, now in light, but the motion, the essence of her, was not linked to this morning or even this room. They were in Timber. They were on the first vacation they took with Noelle. They were in his room at Garden the first time she spent the night. Through the window behind him the sea still glittered, but the pull of her was strong, and Squall slid back onto the bed beside her, and pushed her hair behind her ear.

She stirred, and the thing around his heart relaxed.

"I'm going for a walk," he said. Her eyes tightened in response and she tucked her head towards her chest. He brought his fingers across her cheek to rest on her lips, and continued, "So if you wake up, I'll be back soon."

She murmured something nonsense against his fingers, and he kissed her nose, her lips, her forehead, and trailed his fingers a final time through her hair.

"See you soon," he said, and slipped on a pair of shoes and walked outside into the brisk morning air.

_._

_October, eight years past_

_._

_"Rinoa."_

On the rocks of the Centra coastline she heard her name break through the fog, and froze.

The sound of it was terrible, coming from all sides, and it struck a fear in her stronger than the rocks, than the violent sea. She had been found.

_"Rinoa!"_

_I'm not here._ She let herself blend into the sea spray, a ghost against the line of giant rocks forming a breadcrumb trail from land, to land to…

She couldn't remember what was at the end, why she was here in the first place. In one direction were cliffs, leading into this boulder chain; cliffs she had set off from, climbing onto the first of the rocks, and then the other, and then the other. They continued in a wide crescent, gaps between them of inches or feet (and possibly too far to jump between them at all, possibly that was her, her-flight? her drive), but Rinoa could not remember her destination. Into the sea, perhaps. A slow journey atop the rocks, ten, fifteen, twenty feet above the water (and how far below?), she clung to each uneven surface, deliberate, cautious. The fog clouded her vision and the water crashed below her, waves stretching up to soak her feet, threatening to pull her down.

But what was she _doing_ here?

She was in the center, of that she was sure. She did not know how many times she'd crossed the space between each rock, felt the world open beneath her feet with every leap, but she did know they were getting smaller now, closer to the sea, closer to her goal.

And the point had been to reach it unseen.

_"Rinoa, please."_

"No."

The wind and pounding surf swallowed her reply, her _command,_ reducing her to another piece of scenery. She was not all powerful here. She was tiny, foolish, and the fog and mist cleared enough for her to see to the end of her path, and over the stepping stones (glaciers, tall, falling to the level of the sea by the foot, without subtly or grace, and they stretched half a mile towards the horizon), there was nothing.

_Nothing._

At the end of her journey was death.

_"_No_,"_ she said again. Now her voice was strong, smooth, and it shook the air around her until it folded in, shielded from her the return path and commanded her go on, go ahead.

"NO."

The drop from rock to sea beckoned, and when Rinoa's next jump was back the way she came, towards the cliffs, towards _home_, it was not with the deft grace of before, but it was pained, desperate, and she almost missed. She clawed at the rough stone face as the fog moved in around her, changing colors, sliding under her hands so she might lose her grip.

"No," she whimpered. One down, she did not know how many more to go.

Another jump. Another near miss. Another chance for the fog, for the sea, to rush to claim her, the scene behind her always clearing, always, she felt, drawing nearer and nearer. The cliffs were visible now. The red cliffs of Centra, on what end of the southern continent she could only guess, and laid out on them a black coat lined with fur, one she hadn't seen in years.

_"Rinoa, noa, noa…oa...oa… "_

"I'm here!"

She jumped, and she missed. Her fingers slapped against the cliff's edge and she felt the fog, thick, discolored, wet from the spray of the sea, pull her down and down, and she waited and welcomed the end-

-and an arm caught her, outstretched. It gripped her and she clung to it, and it pulled her out of the fog and onto the cliff, the surface gritty and warm and-

"Rinoa-wake up."

-soft?

She clung to the arm more tightly, and refused to open her eyes. She was on the cliff. She was not on the cliff. She could still hear the sea, but it was softer, kinder, and instead of clouds, thick with the end of days, she felt the sun.

A sigh, or possibly something like a grunt from…

"Squall."

"Rinoa. Look at me."

His voice was distant, and she kept her eyes closed. She was on the cliffs. She was on a beach. She was dead. Squall-was it Squall?-it had to be him, it was his voice, his scent, _him. _He tried to move his arm from hers and she cried out and opened her eyes, and screamed.

"Rin-what? You're safe. You're safe, I'm here."

Squall's face was distorted and his words stretched across something unseen. She thought the day should be clear-bright sun, bright sand, bright rocks reaching into the southern coast, and it was frozen, paused, each frame moving just out of sync with the other. Her arms were wet with the spray from the sea, and when she looked down the spray was red.

_I'm here, I'm here, I'm here…_

_"Where?"_

She spoke into her own head, and could hear Squall trying to answer but could not see past the red on her arms, on his hands, on his clothes-blood. Her blood?

"No!"

She jumped up, and when the stretched, broken version of Squall reached for her, she ran. She was in pain, blood and tears trailing behind her, but still she ran, and heard him, felt him trying to catch her, but it was not him, it couldn't be him. _Her_ Squall was whole, sharp, real, and he could break the illusions and bring her home. This Squall was false, a trick designed to make her weak, submissive.

She turned her head once and he was far behind her, and when she looked ahead of her she froze, and the air, the sea, all of sound and light froze with her.

"Mom?"

Rinoa cocked her head, the figure before her so clear against the distorted surroundings it gave her a slight headache. "Noelle?"

The figure nodded, and Rinoa shook her head. "You're not… You're not my daughter."

The Noelle in front of her was grown: taller, fuller, older than the girl that should be somewhere at school, barely fourteen and all knees and elbows. Her hair was long, and she wore a dark sweater over a pale purple skirt that moved in a phantom breeze. This girl could have been Rinoa, with a thinner face and sharper nose.

"I will be."

Or she could have been Noelle.

"Where-when?"

"I'm dreaming, I think. Is this…your dream?" Noelle-who-was-not-Noelle looked around her, traced a finger through the air that left a blurry trail. "You never showed me we could do that." She backtracked over the blurred line and the scenery shifted back into place, gauzy, but indistinguishable from the gauze of the rest of the landscape.

"Don't," Rinoa said, but couldn't explain why not.

"You're bleeding," Noelle said. "I think I remember this. What happened? You never would tell me."

"A-" Dream? Was that right? "I think I got lost," Rinoa said instead, and touched a finger to her arm that came away red and sticky. "It's too rocky here."

"Dad was so worried."

"He does that."

"Yeah… He still does." Noelle laughed softly, and it was permission for Rinoa to smile.

"Is this your dream?" she asked.

"Is it a dream?"

Rinoa considered this. "I don't know. It feels like one."

Noelle watched her, and Rinoa was very conscious of how wild she must look, blood dripping from her arms, hair and face still matted with the dirt and spray of the rock-trail she had escaped (or had she been there at all?). Noelle shouldn't see her like this, even this older version of Noelle who could take care of herself. Who could change the shape of her surroundings and walk through time, and-

"Oh-" Rinoa brought a hand to her mouth and understanding filled her so suddenly she thought she might cry or be sick or both. "Noelle…"

The Noelle in front of her tilted her head, a mirror of herself, and her entire form blinked in and out of Rinoa's sight once, twice, and then she was gone and the world was moving again, now clear, now real.

"Rinoa!" Squall's voice called to her, desperate, and she turned and ran towards him. She could feel the pain in his leg as if it were her own, but he never stopped chasing her, and when they met, he collapsed against her.

"I'm here," she said, and even after he found his balance he kept his arms tightly around her, his face in her hair, anger and worry and pain pulsing from him.

"Please," he said, though labored breathing, "Please don't ever do that again."

"I'm sorry. Squall I'm…" Her apology felt hollow against him. His arms kept her pressed against his shoulder but from what little she could see of their surroundings they were south, much further south than their house, than any of the houses. She frowned. "This is…new."

"What?"

The pain in Squall's leg was too much for her and she tugged at him, encouraged him to sit, but he refused. "Squall, you're hurting."

"I couldn't catch you."

His voice was broken, and she thought of how she ran from him, the haze of the dream fading slowly away from her.

"It's okay-"

"It's not. I can't-I can't have this. I can't have this _thing_ that holds me back. What if-"

"You can say weakness, Squall. It's okay to call it that-"

"No." His voice was firm, and he drew back from her and tried to place weight on the injury, and Rinoa felt her own leg buckle under her from the pain.

Rinoa looked at him, and the wildness she could feel in herself was mirrored; the angles of his face were sharper in the sun, and behind his eyes was the part of her that tugged at him, that pulled him to the edge of the world on a leg that would barely support his weight. He looked now past her face, at her shoulders maybe, her arms (and she could see now how deep those cuts really were and she wondered how she got them), and she took advantage of his distraction. Rinoa closed her hand into a fist, and when she released it she felt the pain in her own leg lessen and Squall cried out.

"Rinoa-"

"You were in _pain!_"

The green glow of healing magic pulsed between her hand and the dark denim covering his leg, and when he looked back at her Rinoa was not sure of how much she saw there was him, and how much was her.

"I can't rely on you to…"

He stopped himself and looked ashamed, and Rinoa shook her head.

"I know, baby. I know."

"That's not what I meant-"

"But it's… You can't rely on me."

"That's not what I meant," he repeated, trying to convince himself.

They started walking in unison, silent, and Squall led her not down the beach, to the long walk back to their house, but up, inland, to their car. She didn't bother asking how he knew where to find her. He let his arms slide from her long enough for them to take separate seats, and then gripped her hand again and held it on the drive home. Rinoa thought if he'd been able to he would have carried her inside, for the fearful way he kept his arms around her, as though she might disappear (or start running again, she thought), and led her down the hall and to the bathroom where he shepherded her into the tub. She let him guide her without protest, and when she did think to speak, she was silenced by the red running from her arms down the drain, and the small nod from Squall letting her know it was okay to try to seal the wounds with magic.

Rinoa let him work, let him care for her, dizzy from the loss of blood the copper smell that wouldn't wash away, and tried to remember what happened. That far south the sea was dangerous. It was more rock than sand, with strong currents, and she thought that must explain the cuts on her arms. If she found herself in the water there it was a wonder she was alive at all, that the rocks hadn't done more than tear small ribbons across her. She thought back through her morning: why she had left, why she had gone _there,_ but the dream, the lie of time was too strong. She saw the rocks of her dream. She saw the path that let to death. But she did not see _why._

And that was the question Squall asked, after her shower, after he was satisfied she was going to stay in one piece, while they lay propped against each other in bed and she stared blankly through the windows at the calmer, flatter sea that was their backyard.

"I was hoping you could tell me."

"Tell you…" He shook his head.

"It's a blur," she said. "I can remember the dream, but I don't know if that's what it was. I don't know… I don't remember any of the beginning. I didn't even wake up, not at first. You were there but you _weren't_ there. You were broken. Just like me."

"You're not broken, Rin."

"I told you."

He leaned his head against hers, tired, she knew, with this same old talk. "And I still disagree."

She sighed, and chose not to point out that he would always disagree, or that she suspected that had more to do with his own denial than her reality. The day would come when he would have to kill her, whether he could admit to it or not.

Unless.

"What woke you up?"

Rinoa let her head fall against him, and took her time in answering. It was time, then. It was…true.

"Noelle."

"But she's-"

"It happens, Squall." He tensed, and she blinked back tears.

"You're sure?"

She nodded. "I don't know if I dreamed her, or if… Or if the whole thing was her dream. If she was my own vision or if she somehow managed to drop in from the future, but she was there and she was… She could see things, she could manipulate the aether. At some point we do it. She is… She is my successor."

Squall let out a long breath, and Rinoa dropped her hands to the light blue bedspread. Her bandages looked dirty against it, red threatening to blossom beneath them. She stared at her arms for a few minutes, and then let another wave of magic fall across them.

"We…" Rinoa stopped, unsure of what she was going to say anyway.

"Or maybe she's mine," Squall said. Rinoa thought about what he could mean, and at a loss, turned to face him as much as was possible.

"Yours?"

"Dropping into the wrong place in time. Setting your own future in motion. I guess she got that part from me."

His words gripped her heavily until several minutes had passed and Rinoa started to laugh.

"Yes, that was a joke," Squall said, and chuckled.

"A really, really bad one."

"Yeah. Sorry about that."

"No…" The tears were back again, and now Rinoa let them fall. "No, I guess joking is all we can do."

Squall wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer, and Rinoa watched a tear splash against his hand. He drew it towards her face and brushed it against her cheeks, and Rinoa kissed his fingers, and laced them through her own.

"We should tell her soon," she said.

"She won't be surprised."

"I know. But if it's… Now that we know. Maybe not tell her that part, but…we should just tell her soon. I can work with her, prepare her, teach her…"

Squall traced his thumb over hers and said nothing, and they listened to the waves crash outside.

_._

His walk took longer than planned, and Squall watched his shadow, long in front of him in the final stretch of beach before their house. He guessed it was almost nine, and wondered if anyone would be awake. Noelle said she would call when their plane arrived, and his phone was still sitting on the table by his side of the bed, silenced.

He wasn't worried. They would come by cab as they always insisted and make themselves at home, and probably wake the rest of the household in the process. He gave passing thought to missing their arrival, relieved in knowing Rinoa would wake with everyone else.

What he thought about instead was running.

Running at Garden since he was a child, running in Timber along Canal Street, running here on the beach in the short time he was allowed. For most of his life his level of fitness played a large part in determining his ability to survive, until it didn't.

And after that he walked, and tried to rebuild. Every morning on the beach until he started teaching, and then every day to and from work. Miles of convincing his body he was still the SeeD he'd once been, learning to accept that he wasn't, and the constant battle to keep from getting worse.

At least Rinoa no longer ran, when her mind sent her chasing things he could not see, and chasing her was once more something he could do.

He thought about running when he left the house and walked towards the shore, until his thoughts turned into memories and he was much further from home than he'd meant to go, and he thought about running after he turned around.

He also thought about breakfast in the final paces towards the house, and that even if Irvine and Ellone were still asleep he considered it far late enough now to get the day started.

"That's where you went!"

Squall looked up from the dune bridge to see Ivy, seated by herself on the deck. He waved, and failed to convince himself he shouldn't be concerned that she was alone. Instead of going back into the bedroom, Squall only paused at the door to stare inside, where Rinoa still lay sleeping, just as he'd left her.

"How long have you been here?" Squall asked, halfway up the steps.

"Twenty minutes maybe? Our flight got in early." Her accent was thick, a vestige of her life in Esthar, never weakened from her years on the Galbadian continent. It was an accent he'd heard a lot, and would alway remind him of Laguna; subtle and still largely crossed with his Galbadian origins, but his father's adopted pattern of speech was sealed as his point of association.

"Rough flight?" Squall leaned against the table and stretched his bad leg, and nodded towards the glass in Ivy's hand that definitely did not hold coffee.

She shook her head. "Rough landing. Noelle…" She sighed. "It's so different."

Squall frowned, and glanced inside. Noelle was curled up in one of the armchairs, and when he looked back to Ivy she was taking a long pull from her glass and watching the waves, her dark skin soaking in the morning sun.

"She's sleeping," Ivy supplied, and held the glass out towards Squall. He took it and admired for a moment the way no light penetrated the liquid. "She said she was tired in the car and beelined for the chair when we got here. Go ahead, try some. It's something new, I think you'll like it."

Squall brought the glass to his lips and smelled it, then took a sip, surprised by how much flavor it had.

"Malty," he said, and Ivy laughed.

"Way to simplify it."

"That's a lot of flavor for nine in the morning."

"The rest of the bottle is on the counter if you want any." Ivy gave him a strong look when he handed back her glass, and Squall looked quickly away. He knew, of course, that Ivy knew. That Noelle would have told her the second she got back to Dollet if not sooner, and he didn't know where to start. _I'm sorry_ never seemed to be words enough.

"Thanks," Squall settled on, and left her for a minute.

Talking to Ivy had never been difficult for him, not since the first time Noelle brought her home when she pulled out a variety pack of six different beers and banged them on the counter. She'd looked him straight in the eye and said, "Noelle told me you won't approve of me if I drink shitty beer, so I brought these as a peace offering." The pack contained five brews Squall had never heard of, and one Seifer talked about that they never got the chance to share. If Ivy had been worried she never showed it, and Squall admired her nerve, and consented to have a drink with her.

_You're bonding,_ Rinoa called it. _That's what you're supposed to do with your daughter's partner._

Squall was just happy Ivy had no affiliation whatsoever with Garden. Relating to her, he felt, was an added bonus.

In the kitchen he considered another cup of coffee, but picked up the large bottle Ivy had left on the counter and studied it for a minute, and decided to hell with it. As an afterthought, he filled a shot glass with the dark brew and set it on the table next to the coffee and vanilla bean pods he'd placed earlier. Before going outside he paused at Noelle's chair long enough to be sure she was breathing, and closed the door behind him when he walked back onto the deck.

"You do it too."

"What?" Squall took a seat beside her, and she raised her glass to him.

"Make sure she's breathing. Noelle said you always used to do that to Rinoa, but I never noticed before. I do it too."

"She always is," he said. Helpful. Hopeful.

"Apparently it doesn't stop you from making sure."

"Old habits die hard. Where's June?"

"Ran out to the store. She took your car, Noelle told her it was okay."

"What-"

"Breakfast. I know you always make it, but we kept eyeing these muffins at the airport and she decided to get some at a place where she wouldn't need to donate a kidney to afford it." Ivy laughed, and held her glass up to the light. "You can't see a damn thing through this, can you? Not even in the bright Centra sun."

"The bottle says it's Timber."

"Yeah, you probably can't get it down here. We just started to in Dollet."

"I didn't recognize the name."

"Another new one. TImber's got a new brewery every time you turn around these days. We've been taking trips when we can to check out the new stuff. I think Noelle wanted to invite you up to join us sometime, but I guess that's easier said than done these days, isn't it?"

Squall chuckled, amused as ever at Ivy's bluntness, and immensely relieved she brought the subject up first. "We thought you needed another reason to wish your girlfriend had a different family," he said. "Or at least one she didn't talk to."

"Nah. She wouldn't be Noelle without you. Anyway," Ivy grinned. "I might get stuck with in-laws who found it highly inappropriate to drink this early in the morning. Much less who were wiling to drink with me."

"Being a role model wasn't ever something I've ever had much success with. You're calling us in-laws now?"

"I thought she told you?"

"I didn't think it was official."

"It isn't."

Squall felt a joke fall flat at the end of Ivy's response, and took a drink. He'd been through this conversation with Rinoa enough times to guess what the week must have been like for Ivy and Noelle, and there wasn't a lot he could say.

Ivy sighed, and turned to him. "Lie and tell me it gets easier?"

"Does it count if you know it's a lie?"

"Let's find out." Her glass was almost empty, and she grinned again. All smiles, even when she was serious, Ivy reminded Squall of Zell in many ways. He'd been making jokes even while he lay bleeding to death on the cracked Esthar soil.

"It gets easier."

_"You're going to be fine."_

_"You're a crappy liar."_

"Oh come on, you've got to do better than that."

_"Call me a liar again and I'll discharge you for insubordination."_

_"Is that all you've got to do to get out of here? And all this time I've been worried about showing you respect."_

"Remember Laguna's movie?"

"Ugh, that awful thing? I try to block out my girlfriend's related to that actor. No offense, of course." Ivy spoke not to Squall, but to the aether, which Squall could swear laughed at them.

"It's like that. It's romance and adventure and beating the odds. Cheating the system by using magic to get your way all the time."

"Well that's not a lie. Not really."

"It's a lie if you believe that's all it is."

"That's fair. Back in a minute." Ivy slid out of her chair, and when she returned her glass was half full. "That's all that's left, so if you want more, well, you'll have to wait until later I guess, since I brought an extra bottle we were planning to give to you as a gift. Unless you really feel like getting the day started early." She laughed again, and Squall thought it was more pained, more forced than before. "Rinoa?"

"Sleeping," he said. _I hope._

"You hope?"

He nodded, and focused on the ale. On an empty stomach and after his walk it was already going to his head, mixing with the heat of the sun and lulling him almost back to sleep.

"All I want to do is apologize," he said and paused, surprised at how quickly the words tumbled out. "Even though it doesn't do any good. It doesn't do me any good, or you, or Noelle and Rinoa." Squall leaned back in the chair. "But it's all I want to do. I guess because I can't do anything else."

Ivy drummed thin fingers on the arm of her chair and Squall listened to the rhythm and sighed.

"What was the first month like for you?"

"Hmm?"

"The first month. For you and Rinoa."

Squall knit his eyebrows together and stared at her, confused. "Our first month? She was unconscious for most of it. When she finally woke up-"

"You almost died for her."

He nodded.

"More than once, if I've read between the lines of the history books correctly."

"It was war-"

"This must be what I sound like, to people who don't get it. Who don't understand the things I do for Noelle."

"What do I sound like?"

"What were your first _months_ like, then? After the war?"

Squall swirled the last of the foam in his glass around and swallowed it, and reached for old memories, so much closer to the surface lately. When it took too long for him to answer, Ivy continued.

"I don't know what it must have been like for you, but it's… Squall, you keep trying to say you're sorry but it's different for us. You and Rinoa never had a choice. Noelle and I… We knew each other. We both had the chance to say no. The fact that I can sit out here and drink a beer with you before the sun's finished rising-I'm sorry if it's presumptuous, but from what Noelle says you never had that, or anything like it. I have about a million questions when you aren't around and of course I can't think of any of them right now, but if I could, would you answer them?"

"As much as I could."

"I thought so. And that's…that's something."

"You wouldn't like most of my answers."

"I'm young. I'm not supposed to like the answers of my elders. Oh-" Ivy stood up and thrust her glass at Squall, and in a flash of dark hair she disappeared inside. He stood up slowly, and when he turned around he saw Ivy kneeling beside Noelle through the window, stroking her face, whispering hurried reassurances. Squall finished what remained in Ivy's glass and set it beside his on the table, and walked downstairs. He was not surprised to find Rinoa stirring, fitful, and he sat beside her on the bed and took her hand.

"Rin," he said, just louder than a whisper, and repeated it when she didn't wake. "Rinoa."

"Squall."

She opened her eyes slowly, and then wide, wild, and jerked her hand out of his and ran it over her arms, and he felt her panic, and then her relief. He lowered himself beside her, and pulled her close. "Hey. Wake up."

"Lenown Shore," she said, and he tensed at the memory. "Are we real?"

"We're real. You're awake."

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "What time is it?"

"Nine thirty. Maybe closer to ten."

"So the girls are here."

"They are. Noelle…"

"She was dreaming too, wasn't she?"

Squall nodded.

Rinoa closed her eyes. "So it really did happen that way. She's the right age. She-Why does your breath smell like beer?"

Squall smiled. "I was talking to Ivy. She was outside, just..waiting."

Rinoa shook her head. "She's just like you."

"She's better than me," Squall argued.

"Not possible."

Rinoa let one of her arms fall across the bed beside her and stretched, and then curled again against him, small and sad.

"What?" he asked.

"It's just…"

"Rinoa…"

"She didn't choose to come."

Squall frowned, working through the path in Rinoa's thoughts. "In your dream?"

She nodded. "Not if it was… Now. Not if it's because of our shared dreaming."

"Hey," he said, and touched a hand to her chin. "Stop. That's not… That's not how it works."

"Says you." Rinoa nodded her head down and kissed his hand. "You've never understood how any of this works."

He shrugged. Once you stood beside yourself at another age the mechanics of time took on a level of complicated that overcame the urge to make sense of the world. At least, where some things were concerned. "I know we've had this conversation before, and it didn't get us anywhere then either."

She smiled and sat up, and Squall's attention fell to the way the light played across her shoulders, her arms, her breasts, and he slid his hand over her chest and around to her back and pulled her towards him.

"Didn't you just tell me the girls were here now?" Rinoa giggled into his shoulder and pushed him back.

"I'm just holding you," he said, and kissed her nose.

"I'm glad you talked to Ivy."

"It wasn't much of a talk." Squall stepped off the bed and held out a hand to help Rinoa do the same.

"It's still more than you ever had."

"That's what Ivy said."

"You should listen to her." Rinoa closed the door to the bathroom and Squall folded up the sheets on the bed and smoothed the pillows while he waited for her. When she emerged she began to dress, and he sat on the edge of the bed and watched.

"I gave Seifer and Quistis some coffee. And some beer."

"Appropriate."

"I'm…" His words failed him, and Squall reached a hand out and tugged Rinoa back onto the bed beside him. She looked for a moment like she was going to protest and then realization dawned on her face, and he felt more than saw her grow solemn, serious. She touched his face and pushed back his hair; kissed him lightly and then harder, and then lightly again, and he loved her for her silence, for her understanding, for not making him say out loud the thing he feared.

"Nobody new this year," she whispered, and kissed him again. "Nobody new."

Rinoa held out a hand and they stood together and walked out of the bedroom, and heard a car pulling into the driveway that had to be June.

Nobody new.

_No matter how close we came._

* * *

_A quick note to first off thank everybody who is reading this, and second, to give a little cheer for the fact that with this chapter, this story has officially crossed the 50k mark! Having started several NaNoWriMo stories over the years and never finished one, crossing that threshold feels pretty darn awesome. Especially as when I started this story I was worried I would be able to stretch it out to the 20k it needed to be to qualify for WiBi... Apparently with enough time, and an awesome support system of readers, friends, and my ever-patient husband, I am capable of writing more than one-shots! _


	13. Chapter 13

_We were growing, it's true, and sometimes urged that_

_we soon grew up, half for the sake_

_of those others who had nothing but their grown-up-ness._

_And were, yet, on our own, happy_

_with Timelessness, and stood there,_

_in the space between world and plaything,_

_at a point that from first beginnings_

_had been marked out for pure event._

_. . ._

_But this: death,_

_and the whole of death, before life,_

_to hold it so softly, and not live in anger,_

_cannot be expressed._

_-_from_ The Fourth Duino Elegy_

Rainer Maria Rilke

__.__

_September, one month past_

__.__

"Squall."

Silence followed her voice and Squall remained still, hating time, if possible, more than he ever had before.

"It's…" Rinoa started again, and Squall knew she was shaking her head behind him. He heard light footsteps against the wood, felt her approaching. She wrapped her arms around his waist, and let her weight fall into him for support. She said something, muffled against his back, that sounded to him like it might have been _"Please."_

Squall swallowed and brought his hands to rest over hers.

"Noelle is sleeping now. Ivy's in there with her… She-"

"I know," Squall snapped, and quickly gave her hands a squeeze in apology. "I… I know."

Rinoa sighed and let one of her arms fall, moving so she stood beside him. Squall pulled her towards him, and swallowed again. He knew, because they'd talked it over so many times. Knew, as though it had already happened, a clear picture burned into his mind. He tried to see it objectively: a goal, a mission plan, and nothing else.

But it hadn't happened, and he found it difficult talk about, to even think about, so close to the possibility of losing the ground beneath him. His entire life, he'd lived in planning and preparing, in staring into the face of the worst-possible-scenario and knowing what he needed to do to survive. His entire life he had been able to think around his own feelings, to act according to plan. In all regards except one.

"I thought you were ready for this."

"Rinoa…" _I'm never going to be ready for this._

She sighed again. "I know. But…" She looked up at him, and the moonlight reflected the wildness that pained her so much to control, and it was enough.

"I know." Squall held her gaze, absorbing this aspect of her. He would pull it into himself if he could, take away the dizziness, the loss of control, the moments where she didn't know who or where or when she was. He would do anything if it would help her, anything. If only he'd known (if only he'd _believed_-deep down, after all, hadn't he always known?) what 'anything' would eventually mean. "I know," he repeated, and wrapped his other arm around her and pulled her into his chest, and let his face rest in her hair.

He took in her smell. The saltwater smell that clung to everything, mixed with cooking things she carried with her from dinner and the faint, ever present scent of something floral (jasmine, he thought, as if she hadn't said it a thousand times, and he was so _aware_ of all those things she'd said a thousand times that played at the edge of his memory, that he needed her voice to remember). He took in the tickle of her hair against his cheek, her breath against his shoulder. The feeling of his arms around her-that strong, certain feeling of purpose it gave him, that if he could do nothing else, he could be there for her-and the grip of her fingers on the back of his shirt that promised she would take care of him too. He listened to her breathe, and he knew he would never, ever be ready.

She broke away first, and Squall brought a hand to her chin and lifted her face so he could see her eyes again-eyes still full of madness, and the madness was what he needed to see. The proof that this was the right choice, the necessary choice, no matter what it meant for him. "Okay," he said, and when she smiled a tear slipped over her lashes, flashing moonlight at him as it fell.

"Is there anything else you want to say?"

_Yes,_ Squall thought. _Everything._ All the things they might never get to say, the conversations they might never get to have. No matter how many times they talked through this moment, wrote down and said out loud and kissed and cried and fought, it seemed there was more, always more, and always beyond expression. What do you say to the person who is the foundation of your existence when faced with losing them forever? How, Squall wondered, could something as contrived as words ever hope to make the pain less, or, at best, adequately describe what she meant? What _they_ meant? That he could not see himself in a life that didn't include her. That all the time spent apart so he could keep the job he thought would keep her safe meant nothing, not now, not in the face of all the time they had lost. Or that as rich as their time together had been, that while they tried so hard to live in the present with their intimate knowledge of Time, they had still taken advantage. _How._

"I…" He brushed the tear from her cheek, and his throat seized, caught on something he didn't think would ever leave. Instead, he leaned down and kissed her. Words were useless, but this… She was crying, and he kissed her harder and drew her against him, wrapped her hair in his fingers and tried to freeze the moment, delay the thing he could not bear to face.

_"Promise me again that you won't back down." _

_"Rin…"_

_"That you won't… You won't interfere. Or try and stop me… Stop it. Even if…"_

He felt the hot pulse under her skin and clung to the kiss for only a second longer than he should have, and lifetimes less than he would have liked.

_"I…"_

_"What, Squall? This is… I need you to _say_ something! I know this is hard for you, but it's… It's impossible for me. I can't do this without you. I can't do this if I think… If there's a chance it doesn't work, that I might… I can't do it, knowing you'll resent my memory for causing you this much pain. That you might hate me for it."_

_"You?"_

_"Yes-"_

_"Me, Rinoa. I could never… How could you ever think I could hate you? But myself? Having to live out the rest of my life alone knowing that I couldn't save you… I could hate myself for that." _

_She held a veined hand to the light, and brushed long fingers against his face. "This is saving me, baby. Knowing we get to choose the way it happens, that no matter what else, I got to remain myself… That you'll be with me. That is saving me. You'll see it that way one day." _

Her taste lingered on his lips and he struggled to pull away, to loose his fingers from her hair and step back, and he wondered, if this part of it was already so hard, whether he had it in him to get through the rest of the night. Then he met her eyes and drew in a breath. He was losing her. She knew. _It_ knew.

And he had made a promise.

He took her hand, her fingers long and hot in his, and they walked inside together.

Rinoa swayed slightly beside him and Squall wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close to steady her, and looked to Ivy and nodded. "It's time."

"I think you had it easier, not knowing what was coming," Ivy said, and slid off the bed, one of her hands still resting on Noelle's face, peaceful with the deep sleep of magic. Squall tightened his arm around Rinoa. "Then again," Ivy looked between the two of them, apology written on her face, "Maybe I just shouldn't speak."

Squall wanted to respond, to keep her talking, keep them busy-or maybe just to tell her to leave them alone-but Rinoa beat him to it.

"She'll be okay," she said, the effort in her voice painful. "Nothing about this is the same."

"You're the experts." Ivy turned back to Noelle, and leaned over her and whispered something Squall made it a point not to hear. Ivy then kissed her and walked towards the bedroom door, pausing where Squall and Rinoa stood. "I'll be across the hall. Just… Let me know when you think it's safe."

Squall nodded, but Rinoa reached out and grabbed her arm when Ivy started to move. They stared at each other for a second, a minute, and Squall steeled himself against the rush of emotions Rinoa projected-the sorrow, the regret, the guilt and the relief. He considered interrupting, fearing for her, her lack of grounding, when Rinoa leaned towards Ivy and they embraced.

"I'm sorry," Rinoa said. "I'm so-"

"Stop it," Ivy said, and pushed her gently back towards Squall. "I had my chance to run." Her voice hitched, and Squall had no interest in trying to interpret why.

"It could get…bad," he said instead, and Ivy held up a hand.

"We've been over it and over it. No matter what I hear, I'm not coming through this door until you come get me, or the sun comes up." She didn't smile this time, but Squall saw her give Rinoa's hands a squeeze before she turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

The silence swelled, broken by the waves outside and Noelle's steady breathing.

"She will be okay, Squall," Rinoa said, pushing him gently from her side. She stepped closer to the bed, and drew her hand over Noelle's face, soft, maternal.

"Are you telling that to me, or to yourself?"

"Both, I guess." Rinoa pulled her hand back and Squall walked towards her and took it, noting with neither comfort nor discouragement that it was cooler to the touch, and she stood steadier on her feet.

They watched Noelle in silence, and Squall fought against the things telling him to run, to abandon the entire plan, and he wondered at his own hypocrisy. Had he meant it, all these years, telling Rinoa her powers were just another extension of herself? That he never saw them the way that she did, the way the rest of the world did? And if that were true…why did he feel like they were placing a curse on Noelle?

Because it wasn't about how he felt about it, it was about how it always affected Rinoa. Because she felt outcast, stigmatized, and scared. Because it didn't matter that he would stand by her, protect her, and love her no matter what, not when there was a thing inside her that caused her a pain he could not ease. He could hold her after the nightmares, but he couldn't make them go away, just as he could hold her after the chain of magic inside her took over, but he could not hide from her the damage she may have caused.

This was their choice: her continued suffering, a potential path of destruction that would end in her death, be it at his hand or another's; or this passing, this transfer.

"She'll be okay," he echoed. "I'll make sure of it."

"I know you will. But she… I still feel so selfish. I just keep thinking, what would happen if we didn't do this? Just because I saw her… It was only once. What if I was wrong? What if it was just a dream, and I'm doing this…" Her voice dropped, and she finished almost in a whisper. "I'm supposed to keep her safe. To protect her from everything."

"Rinoa…"

"No," she shook her head. "Please don't. Don't make this harder than it is."

_"What if I invented it? What if she isn't my successor?"_

_"Then we don't do it."_

_"But then what? I keep going crazy? Until I eventually lose my mind, and you have to kill me?"_

_"Or we find someone else."_

_"Who? Who else do we find? Who else can I…"_

_"Or you-"_

_"No. No suppressants. No drugs or charms or implants. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life muted. If this wants to claim me, it needs to get it over with. Only then… Then where does the succession go? Does it kill me right beside Noelle? Is that how it happens? Which is worse? There's no… It's lose-lose. It always has been."_

_"But the guilt-"_

_"Then I bear it. Just… Please. Don't make this harder than it is."_

Squall bit the inside of his cheek, afraid of saying something that would ruin these moments, cover what could be the end with bitterness. _Harder than it is._ The only thing that made this the easier path was feeling they had some degree of choice.

"I love you," Rinoa said to Noelle, and Squall's chest tightened.

It was wrong. Everything about it was-

"Okay," Rinoa said, and she led him into the bathroom.

He stopped short in the doorway and stared at the counter, at the bottle of wine and two glasses that sat waiting. Rinoa watched him in the mirror and he looked between her and the display, the absurdity of it falling over him. Squall opened his mouth to comment, but instead, he laughed.

This was his life. This was where they were. Their daughter asleep while she waited for her parents to cement her doom to save themselves, faced with the possibility of losing Rinoa, the center around which his life revolved. His family, his _family,_ this unit that gave him purpose, that he would-and almost had-died for, and by morning he could be the only one left standing. And not only had he agreed to it, but he was about to drink to it.

And so he laughed, and his voiced bounced off the bathroom walls and mocked him.

"You're…" Squall stopped, at a loss, and watched her pull the cork from the bottle.

"I'm what?" She poured the first glass and handed it to him.

"You're sick."

"Well… That's the point, isn't it?"

Squall's frown was lost on her, Rinoa's attention now turned to emptying powder from a small vial into her glass, powder that turned the wine she poured over it cloudy and dark. She swirled it around and looked at him, a half smile on her lips that dropped as soon as she saw his expression. "Oh, come on. Indulge me. This is going to taste terrible no matter what, I can at least pretend, right?"

He shook his head, and Rinoa's smile returned. She nodded at the mirror, and snaked her arm around his waist. "Look," she said, and gestured towards their reflections. Squall did, and took in the image looking back at them. Him in his suit from dinner, thinner in his years out of Garden; and her, slight, hair falling longer than ever and hiding the lines that traced the sides of her face, spilling over bony shoulders onto the sheer, dark fabric of the dress he saw now as a shroud. "You should smile," she said. "I like seeing us this way. And…I want to remember your smile."

Squall met her eyes in the mirror and drew in a breath. He turned to her sharply, pressed his free hand to her face and just…looked. She was there, wholly, no trace of madness or the backwards slide into a self she couldn't control. Just her, Rinoa. His wife of over thirty years, Noelle's mother, his best friend who grounded him, who loved him, who in this moment _knew_ him, and more importantly, knew herself.

And at that, it was not hard to find a smile.

"Perfect," she said, and held up her glass. "To a wonderful life?"

He tapped his glass against hers, and said, never breaking contact with her eyes, "I love you," and kissed her once more. Fiercely; a kiss for all the years they had shared, and the ones they may lose. A last kiss, a kiss he would have never ended if she hadn't pulled slightly back, let her lips press once more against his, and gripped his free hand with hers.

"I love you, too."

He took a small sip of wine and watched her drain her glass.

It started immediately, before the powder had a chance to react-the dueling sides of herself fighting each other, her motive no longer secret. In seconds her eyes flashed, the veins on her hands darkened, and she stared at him in terror. "Squall-"

_I can stop it, _he thought, hands posed beside her, but she shook her head.

"You promised," she choked, and he caught her as she pitched forward and held her, her voice now inside his head. _You promised._

It came in waves. First, the fight of magic, and he watched it consume her. The lines on her hands and face grew sharper and before long it took her entirely, rolling back her eyes and taking over her motions, her speech. It used her voice to try and jar him, persuade him, every tactic Rinoa had ever used on him to get her way and many much stronger, and Squall locked his jaw and pressed her to him, pulled her to the floor where he could better keep her still.

_You promised._

Her words echoed until he was sure he was hearing them out loud. _You promised, you promised, you promised,_ over and over and eventually in his own voice and it was swallowed up by wailing from this body that was Rinoa-but-was-not-Rinoa, and finally a scream that tore from his own throat that he buried against Rinoa's neck, and wept.

The second wave came with the poison, strong and hard, but familiar. This was illness. It was Dollet, in their early twenties, when they fought each other for the hotel bathroom and swore never to trust Zell again on seafood recommendations anywhere but Balamb. It was the stomach flu that rolled through Timber two years in a row, and then again their first year in Centra. It was the unpleasant after effects of making love beside the ocean in the dead of winter, and it was the first half of her pregnancy with Noelle. Her skin was hot and sweaty under his fingers now, her pulse fast, and Squall held her hair back and let her ride it out, while her body fought not itself, but the toxins, and he marveled that he could find relief in watching her this miserable.

Finally the sickness gave way to violent shaking, and in minutes she went still. Under her hair he felt her pulse, weak, slow, but present, and Squall leaned against the bathroom wall with her limp and cold in his arms. The wisps of her dress wrapped around him where he held her, and he stared at them, hypnotized by the way they linked his wrists like smoke.

He lost track of how long they lay like that; told himself he wasn't counting her heartbeats, timing his breathing with hers, grasping at these last reminders that she was still alive. For now, she was still here. For now, she was still his. They lay until he grew numb from the cold floor and his legs pinned beneath her, until she grew colder and colder and her pulse ever slower, until she was nothing but a weight against him. Squall pushed her hair back, dark against pale skin, and slowly found enough strength to move. He cradled her in his arms and carried her to the bed and lay her beside Noelle. Noelle, whose red dress and warm skin made Rinoa even more a ghost by comparison. He worked to smooth Rinoa's hair, to move her arms in a way that looked more comfortable so she might just be asleep, and he leaned down to give her one more kiss, one that made his lips tingle with the lingering effects of poison.

Squall sighed and looked through the windows, where the moon was nearly hidden above the house, and he guessed at the time since they stood together on the deck; two hours at most since their toast in the bathroom. He did not know how long he had, only how long was too long, and that was still a long wait away.

In the quiet, the tightening in his chest returned, and the sight of them on the bed, his loss, his failure _('You haven't failed. This is saving me. You'll see it that way, one day.')_ threatened to overtaken him entirely. Pushing it down, Squall turned out the lamp and let the room fill with moonlight, and slid into the narrow space between Rinoa and the edge of the bed, and waited for her to die.

* * *

_I am finally putting in timeline headers for all of the changes in time. I've debated doing this from the very beginning but have held off because I really, really didn't want to-the ambiguity of time has been somewhat intentional given how intimately connected to time these characters are-but the more this story goes, the more difficult it is becoming to properly describe where we are in time within the context of the chapter, and I figure I'd rather just use headers than resort of obvious inserts of age/time/events. Thank you to _Emerald-Latias_ for ultimately being the one to send me to this conclusion-I've had a lot of reviews commenting on how it can be confusing, but she made the best argument so far to actually get me to do something about it! I'll be going through probably tonight and updating the rest of the chapters, and appreciate any additional feedback on what may make it easier to follow!_


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